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— L 









OUR 

ELDER BROTHER 

HIS BIOGRAPHY. 

BY 

E. P. TENNEY, 

AUTHOR OF 
" Triumphs of the Cross " ; "A Story of the Heavenly Carnpfires," etc., etc t 

ASSISTED BY 

Bishop E. R. Hendrix, Ll/.D., 

Prof. Geo. P. Fishfr, LL.D., 

Editor George E. Horr, D.D., 

Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., 

REV. F. A. Nobee, D.D., 
President E. H. Capen, Lly.D., 

Rev. Edward Everett Haee, D.D., 
Evangelist Dwight I,. Moody, 

Rev. Charees H. Parkhurst, D.D., 

Evangeeist H. M. Wharton, D.D., 
And Other Authors. 



ILLUSTRATED 



With a Portfolio of Sacred Art, consisting; of 24 Photographic Reproductions 
of the World's Celebrated Paintings. 



The ^ing^iehstfdson Co. 

Springfield, Mass. 

Richmond. Des Moines. Indianapolis. San Jose. Dallas. Toledo. 

1899. 



®4^Mft& 



Copyrighted, 1897 and 1899, by 
THE KING-RICHARDSON CO. 

Springfield, Mass. 



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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 




PROF. N. L. NELSON, 

BRIGHAM YOUNG ACADEMY. 



CHRIST'S LIFE AS A WORLD-POWER 

By N. Lv. NELSON, 

Professor of English in the Brigham Young Academy. 



WITHIN the memory of men still living - , a tidal wave, mountain high, 
broke upon the western shores of America. So great was its mo- 
mentum that in many places it swept everything before it for miles 
inland. The same wave, moving westward, deluged whole islands in its 
course, rose up against the coasts of Japan, China, and Australia, and. still 
unchecked, poured its flood upon the Indian ocean ; then advancing with 
gradually diminishing front along the south coasts of Africa it surged on- 
ward past the Cape of Good Hope, till it met in Mid- Atlantic the eastward 
moving column set in motion by the same upheaval. Northward it trav- 
eled also and southward till the frozen regions of the poles had been bathed 
in its ever-widening circle ; and passing round these fortresses of eternal 
snow and ice it met again between Europe and America. 

What titanic power, the reader is ready to ask. could set such a wave 
in motion? Science tells us that it started from a subterranean earthquake 
somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Now. if on the shores of California, rive 
thousand miles distant, there could be seen an advancing wall of water 
appalling in its height, how awful must have been the disturbance at the 
point of upheaval ! Such is the natural exclamation ; but is it justly made? 
On the contrary, the disturbance would be scarcely perceptible, save to 
trained powers of observation. To realize this fact, suppose a ship float- 
ing on the area beneath which the volcanic eruption took place. The up- 
heaval must have involved several square miles, and, therefore, could not 
have occurred suddenly. It took perhaps over an hour, or exactly the time 
elapsing between the first and the second wave, or any two succeeding 
waves. Now a ship might thus alternately rise and sink, and no one on 
deck, save he who might watch for the event, be aware that a force had been 
unchained which in a few hours would traverse the length and breadth of 
every ocean ; which fact brings me directly to the point of this illustration. 

The birth of Christ was the most tremendous event that has ever taken 
place on the face of the earth ; an event whose far-reaching consequences 
we realize but dimly even now. Who then, save the few that were on the 
watch tower, could know what it meant nineteen hundred years ago? For 
thirty years Christ lived the life of an ordinary man, — the Carpenter's son. 
The three years of His ministry were, indeed, filled full of mighty works ; 
but who were able to interpret them? Even His disciples failed at first to 
grasp the meaning of His life. What then? Does this fact abate one jot 
the endless influence of it? Was the tidal wave less a tidal wave, that its 
beginning was unperceived? 

But my illustration presents contrasts as well as analogies. The mo- 
mentum of the tidal wave came from beneath and propagated itself through 
the medium of a material ocean. The momentum of Christ's life came 
from above and is carried forward through the medium of a spiritual ocean. 



The tidal wave diminished in force as it advanced, and finally spent itself 
upon insurmoutable barriers. Christ's life gains in momentum as the 
years go by. Bishop Heber was a prophet. The power of Christ's life 
does, "like a sea of glory, spread from pole to pole" : not only inundating 
the level shore-line of natural purity and piety, but climbing the cold 
heights of pride and worldly ambition, and flooding, with its genial warmth 
and brightness, the frozen regions of sin and despair. Nay, not only 
giving life and hope to the living, but rekindling faith and effort among 
the dead ; not only drawing souls to him in regions where the sun still 
shines, but leading " captivity captive " even from among the " spirits in 
prison." And this tidal wave of redeeming power will go on till every 
knee shall bow and every tongue confess : till death is put under His feet, 
and Christ shall present to the Father a glorified earth filled with glorified 
inhabitants just as the Father conceived it at the dawn of creation, when 
the * -morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 

Christ's life differs from all other lives in that it is self-luminous. 
Not only does light come from it, but warmth : light for the understand- 
ing, and warmth for the heart. Take any other name which history sets 
in contrast with that of Christ — Alexander. Caesar, Xapoleon — and it is 
seen to-day only because the lurid glare of events is reflected upon it. Such 
lives are cold, dead centers from which emanates no power to enkindle 
souls. They may appeal to our imagination, but only as does the blight 
of the blizzard or the track of the cyclone. Selfish from beginning to end, 
they are destructive rather than constructive in their tendency ; if we gain 
wisdom from them, it is because we deplore, not because we admire. Other 
characters in history, the poets, the sages, and the prophets, whose lives 
resemble Christ's as stars do the sun, teach positive lessons to mankind, 
and are self-luminous to the extent that the Christ Spirit shines through 
their thoughts and deeds. And so also may our lives shine, if we shall 
learn the secret of the indwelling Light of the universe. 

It is a striking co-incidence that the highest civilization of the 
nineteenth century is co-extensive with Christianity. From a material 
point of view this civilization is attributed to the fact that men turned 
from books to nature : turned from the hoary superstitions of ages, ex- 
panded and elaborated in the darkness of cell and cloister, to the bright 
new page of God's own book whose daily record is written by the sun. But 
it remains yet to be decided, whence came the impulse that moved Chris- 
tian peoples and not other peoples to seek God's will through the medium 
of His works. " The cause of the cause," so the schoolmen were fond 
of saying, "is the cause of the thing caused." Man can express out- 
wardly only that which he first feels inwardly, and the same law holds 
true of nations ; and so at the last analysis it will be found that the glory 
and enlightenment of our day are the outcome of Christ's life : for the 
inner man is Christ's domain : it is here that world-powers are born. 

But how could the imperfect record of a brief life, set in the dark- 
ness of a barbarous age, accomplish such tremendous results in world- 
shaping ? If it were only a record, how, indeed ? The secret of its power 
lies in the fact that Christ still liveth. This is the meaning of a life self- 
luminous. Christ taught men the golden rule, but it would have remained 
a rule — it would never have worked itself into the abolishment of slavery 
and the establishment of the rights of man — had not the ever-present 



Christ Spirit given it life and direction. When the golden rule shall have 
done its work, we shall have universal justice : justice between man and 
man, between man and beast, and between man and inanimate life. 
Superincumbent on this foundation will reign a higher law — a law of love, 
which Christ's life also stands for, both in precept and example. The 
working of this law will mean the Millennium — a new heaven and a new 
earth. 

Such is and such will be the influence of Christ's life as a world-power. 
But its influence on the masses is only the aggregate of its influence upon 
the individual. How does it, how ought it, to influence you and me? 
Note the passage of Scripture (Heb. 2 : 11) : "For both He that sancti- 
fieth and they who are sanctified are all of one : for which cause He is not 
ashamed to call them brethren." He is not ashamed to call us brethren 
because it is in the solemn, the everlasting truth. We belong to the same 
divine race. Let us not spiritualize away this glorious truth. Christ is 
our Elder Brother, not in a figurative, but in a real, literal sense. He was 
with the Father before the world was : so were we. He has returned to 
the Father : so may we. 

Christ was the foremost to hold up this transcendent truth. He taught 
us to pray, " Our Father," and nowhere has He intimated that Father 
means anything else than father. As a further rebuke to the Theosophic 
conception of Deity as a vague, impalpable essence or influence, Christ 
said, " Who hath seen me hath seen the Father " : a saying made plainer 
still by Paul's commentary that our Saviour is the brightness of His Father's 
glory, the express image of His person (Heb. 1:3). Xow, it is of such a 
being that Christ says : "Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is 
perfect." 

Here then is set forth the ultimate goal of man : to be perfect as his 
Father in Heaven is perfect. It is a stupendous mission, but not an im- 
possible one. Our Elder Brother accomplished it, and we are enjoined 
to follow His example. Tn this short command are summed up all the 
legitimate aspirations and achievements of man for millions of ages to 
come ; whether physical, intellectual, social, moral, spiritual, or in what- 
ever other way aspiration and achievement may raise man in the direction 
of God. But how shall this goal be reached with the fewest retrograde 
movements V '• Follow me," said our Saviour. The meaning and pur- 
pose of life are thus made clear : God the Father, the end : God the Son, . 
the means. 

If then any man would know the secret of Chrits's life as a world 
power, let him reflect that the Father gave Him as an example of how we 
ought to live; and if he marvels at the effectiveness of this life, let him 
know that God places the whole power of the universe behind any man 
or woman who will follow in His footsteps. 

With such convictions as to the influence of Christ's life in the 
world, 1 need make no apology for indorsing a work that aims to set 
forth in clear, simple language the record of His deeds while on earth. 
The plan is certainly an admirable one, and gives evidence of ripe scholar- 
ship and years of patient, loving study of the theme. The author has 
evidently soughl to bring together, from a thousand sources, the bright 
and wise tilings that have been said concerning our Saviour. The book 
is. in fact, not so much a narrative as an exhaustive commentary on the 
lib- of our Elder Brother. 



List of Contributing Writers. 

E. R. Hendrix, LL.D., Bishop of M. E. Church, South, Kansas City. 
John H. Vincent, D.D., Bishop of M. E. Church, Topeka, Kas. 

E. H. Capen, LL.D., President of Tufts College. 
George E. Horr, D.D., Editor of " The Watchman," Boston. 
Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Pastor, Editor, Author, Boston. 
George P. Fisher, LL.D., Professor of Yale University. 
Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., Pastor, Reformer, Writer. 
D wight L. Moody, Evangelist of two Continents. 

F. D. Huntington, L.H.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Central New York. 
Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D., Pres. of Rochester Theol. Sem. 
Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn. 

^H. M. Wharton, D.D., Pastor, Evangelist, Author, Baltimore. 

F. A. Noble, D.D., Pastor of Union Park Church, Chicago. 

W. M. Barbour, D.D., LL.D., Pres. of Cong. College, Montreal. 
A. H. Currier, D.D., Prof, of Sacred Literature, Oberlin College. 
Daniel Dorchester, Jr., D.D., Late Prof, of Boston University. 
John S. Sewall, D.D., Bangor Theological Seminary. 

Edward Abbott, D.D., Editor of " Literary World," Boston. 

William T. Herridge, B.D., Ottawa, Ont. 

Alexander McKenzie, D.D., Pastor, First Cong. Church, Cambridge. 



Writers of Selected Chapters. 

William C. Wilkinson, D.D., Prof, of Chicago University. 

J. C. Ryle, D.D., Lord Bishop of Liverpool, England. 

Alexander McLaren, D.D., Fallowfield, Manchester, Eng. 

Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D., Pres. of Princeton University. 
William E. Gladstone, Ex-Prime Minister of England. 

7 



Preface. 

C5 I HIS book is written solely to set forth Jesus Christ as 
4 I Our Elder Brother : as the individual helper of 
Q I every man, My Elder Brother. 
If, perhaps, as some are disposed to say, there have been 
books enough to explain the Gospel text, or books enough 
of controversy defending this or attacking that, or books 
enough on the theology of Christ's life, yet this book is in- 
tended solely to depict the Wonderful Story in its relation 
to every human life — My Brother. Luther has said much 
about the precious proDouns of the Bible, — Me, My, I, 
Thou. It is this snug-fitting personal relationship between 
Our Elder Brother and the weary and heavy laden of the 
world that is the theme of this book. It is an attempt to 
approach the life of Jesus from the human side, in sym- 
pathetic touch with each child of humanity. 

This book cannot be better prefaced than to tell how it 
came to be written. These studies were blocked out 
twenty-five years ago, and thereafter, some phase of this 
great theme so constantly presented itself to the writer's 
mind, that of public addresses every Sabbath for many 
fears one out of seven had for its sole topic the person or 
work of Jesus Christ. Nearly three hundred popular pre- 
sentations were so made, of the principal lines of thought 
now comprised in this book : so the Author was constantly 
studying and re-studying how best to interest and instruct 
not scholars but the common people in the salient features 
of our Masters Life and Work ; condensing and adapting 

8 



PREFACE. 

the voluminous and invaluable works that he found in the 
libraries, to aid those who have no leisure for extended re- 
search. In order better to do this, the Author classified his 
studies, in the attempt to see what the eyes of Jesus saw, 
to hear what his ears heard, to perceive what people he 
constantly met, and to know how he appeared when min- 
gling with the sons of men. And so fascinating was the 
work of picturing all this, that the writer found himself 
little by little reading everything that could be seized upon 
in the great libraries upon the subject. 

Living in a neighborhood where he could have access to 
fourteen hundred thousand books, he discovered that the 
book world for the most part presents the life of our Lord 
in Chronological rather than Topical arrangement, and 
through Expository rather than Devotional treatment. To 
meet his own needs, therefore, the Author selected a few 
hundreds of volumes, and took years enough to study them 
with great care ; * and then he arranged his notes along the 
lines indicated in the first ten books of the Table of Con- 
tents of this work, — " What Jesus Christ is to Me." Hap- 
pily, however, in later reading, more material was found 
that was already classified under one or another of the 
topics alluded to. 

Without hope of preparing or presenting a New Imita- 
tion of Christ, the writer did hope to form for himself and 
for the average man a picture of the Life of our Lord 
wrought out in the light of modern studies and setting 
forth the Master in his relation to modern life, since the 
contemplation of the Life of Our Lord in the Nineteenth 
or Twentieth Century must be based upon fullness of 

* A Catalogue of these books will be found in the Appendix. 

9 



PREFACE. 

knowledge, garnering the fruit of eighteen hundred years 
of research and studying the story of the Son of Man in its 
relation to the world-problems of the very generation in 
which we live. 

To do this, we need to seize upon certain characteristics 
of the story, rather than consume time in discussing ques- 
tions of interpretation or commenting on all the details 
alluded to in the Gospels : to study the spirit of Christ as 
revealed in the incidents of his life rather than make a 
microscopic examination of the incidents themselves. In 
preparing this book, therefore, the Author has sought to 
present to the average man, as if in personal conversa- 
tion or familiar address, the results rather than the proc- 
esses of much that is best in modern scholarship, and to 
emphasize the most important points by citing the words of 
competent authorities : often doing it without crowding the 
page with a record of earmarks to indicate the sources of 
studies which have been carefully prepared.* 

Abundant citation is a part of the plan of this book : 
upon literary grounds there should be less ; yet the multi- 
plication of testimonies is one of the main ends sought, 
with the intent to show the attitude of world-wide scholar- 
ship and life experience toward certain phases of our 
Saviour's life. By this plan, the reader has the benefit of 
phrases more accurate or felicitous than those of the 

*The Author has been at much pains to secure accuracy in his cita- 
tions, so making them trustworthy for all ordinary purposes ; yet in the 
interest of the general reader it has seemed best to remove from the notes 
all those references to book titles and pages and editions which facilitate 
the work of special students. When, however, the Author has condensed 
a quotation, he has asked the reader to " Compare " it with the original 
passage as it is indicated by a note. 

10 



PREFACE. 

Author in setting forth the praises of Immanuel, and in his 
thoughtful hours he is edified and quickened by the perusal 
of thoughts gathered from regions afar or penned at first 
in distant ages : and the reflections and annotations of the 
most eminent students are in this way brought to the serv- 
ice of those who have little leisure for elaborate studies. 
Among those whose words are cited, there are some of the 
most eminent people in the world, some perhaps being 
great statesmen, the uncrowned kings of Christendom, who 
have brought their most precious gifts to Christ, whose 
words are reproduced to aid the meditations of those who 
dwell far from palaces and the great capitals of civilization. 

There is a perennial interest throughout the world in 
tracing and retracing the steps of the Son of Man ; pictur- 
ing the mountains and seas, the gardens or solitudes, that 
he gazed upon. And the Author can but felicitate himself 
and his readers that the art of the painter has been called 
to the aid of the pen, in the 1 Album of Pictures which is 
bound into this volume to illustrate the Life of our Lord. 

And he can but be grateful to those Special Writers whose 
contributions to this volume so greatly enhance its value. 

" To make Jesus better known," says Faber, "is to make 
him better loved : " and this book will abundantly fulfill its 
mission, if, by it, any one is led to a better knowledge of 
the Saviour of men, and to love him more. And if any 
reader peruses these pages in the daily hour alone with 
God, the writer can but pray that the Holy Spirit which 
helpeth human infirmities may heal the imperfections of 
this work, and make it spiritually helpful to him who seeks 
therein to learn more of the excellency of the knowledge 
of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

11 



Table of Contents, 
^<&?&- 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



PAGE 

What Our Elder Brother is to Me, . 66 



Book I. 
OUR PATTERN IN YOUTH. 

Chapter 1.— The Manger Child, 71 

2.— The Home at Nazareth, 81 

3.— The Boyhood of Jesus, 91 



Book II. 
OUR BROTHER IN TOIL. 

Chapter 1. — A Master at the Work-Bench, . . . 101 

2.— His Work without Flaw, . . . . 115 

3. — The Nazarene Neighbors, .... 125 

4. — Mystery of the Wilderness, .... 132 



Book III. 
OUR DIVINE HELPER. 

Chapter 1. — At Home by the Sea, 



2. — Stilling the Angry Waves, . 
3.— The Madman of the Tombs, . 
4. — The Hungry Thousands Fed, 
5. — The Divine Healer, .... 
6. — New Life for the World, . . 

12 



143 
149 
153 
157 
160 
164 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Book IV. 
OUR EXAMPLE IN SELF-RENUNCIATION. 

PAGE 

Chapter 1. — A Singular Life of Service, .... 171 

2.— An Unselfish Ideal, 178 

3.— The Hovel and the Palace, .... 182 

4.— Moral Miracles, 185 



Book V. 

OUR PASTOR AND PREACHER. 

Chapter 1. — A Lesson at the Wellside, .... 189 
2. — His Manner in Attracting Attention, 205 
3.— His Rhetorical Power, 217 



Book YI. 
OUR TEACHER. 



Chapter 1. — The Master and His Pupils, . 
2. — His Originality in Thought, . 
3. — His Self -Assertion, .... 
4. — A Kingdom to Establish, . . 
5. — His Gentleness and Severity, 
6.— The World's Great Teacher, 



225 

238 
242 

252 
269 
279 



Book VII. 

OUR SUFFERING SAVIOUR. 

Chapter 1.— Entering the Shadows, . . . . . 289 

2.— The Heavenly Vine and Bread, . . 299 

3.— The Awful Night in Gethsemane, . 309 

" 4.— The Midnight Hour, 320 

5.— A Triumphant Mob, 326 

6. — The Darkness at Noonday, .... 338 

13 



PAGE 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Book VIII. 

OUR RISEN REDEEMER. 

Chapter 1. — The Resurrection Morning, .... 357 

2.— Where was His Abode ? ..... 3G4 

3. — Opening the Heavenly Gates, . . . 374 

4. — Confident Witnesses, 380 

5. — The Paschal Lamb, . 394 



Book IX. 
OUR FRIEND ON HIGH. 

Chapter 1. — Loving Kindness Personally Admin- 
istered, 401 

2.— Mystery of the Two Natures, ... 412 

3. — Contrasts in Divine Self-sacrifice, . 419 



Book X. 

THE WONDERFUL NAME. 

Chapter 1. — The Scriptural Symbols of Christ, . 431 

2. — His Name Reflected in Nature, . . 435 

3. — Emblems in Human Life, .... 438 

4.— The Mystical Union, 443 

5. — Alpha and Omega, 448 

0. — The Royal Diadem. 452 



14 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Co ntr it> -cited. Chapters. 
Book XL 
THE MASTER AND HIS MESSAGE. 

PAGE 

Chapter 1.— As a Lad in the Temple, 459 

By E. R. Hendrix, S.T.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 2. — As a Pattern in the World of To-day, 463 
By John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 3.— The Guide of Life, 466 

By Elmer H. Capen, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 4. — Our Imitation of the Master, . . . 472 
By George E. Horr, D.D. 

Chapter 5. — The Church in Samaria, 475 

By Edward Everett Hale, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 6.— A Story of Skill, 480 

By President W. M. Barbour, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 7. — The Democracy of Jesus, .... 486 
By William Herridge, B.D. 

Chapter 8. — Character of His Teaching and Work, 492' 
By George P. Fisher, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 9. — The Master, the Message 506 

By Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 10. — Not Law But Love 512 

By John S. Sewall, M.A., D.D. 

Book XII. 
THE VOICE AND THE LIFE. 

Chapter 1. — John's Voice and Christ's Life, . . 519 
Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S.T.D., L.H.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 2.— The Transfiguration, 532 

By Edward Abbott, D.D. 
15 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter 3. — The Door of Salvation, 538 

By Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D. 

Chapter 4. — Our Lord Jesus Christ, 542 

By the Evangelist Dwight L. Moody. 

Chapter 5. — My Personal Friend, 545 

By the Evangelist H. M. Wharton, D.D. 

Chapter 6. — Our Sympathizing Friend, .... 548 
By Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. 

Chapter 7. — Love as a Clock- weight, 552 

By A. H. Currier, D.D. 

Chapter 8. — The Name above Every Name, . . 559 
By Frederick A. Noble, D.D. 

Chapter 9. — Christ our Authority, 566 

By Daniel Dorchester, Ph.D. 

Chapter 10. — Christ in the Old Testament, , . . 574 
By Alexander McKenzie, D.D. 



Supplementary Book:. 

SELECTED CHAPTERS. 

Chapter 1. — His Characteristics as a Preacher, . 589 

By Professor William C. Wilkinson, A.M. 

Chapter 2. — In Remembrance of Me, 594 

By Rt. Rev. John C. Ryle, D.D., D.C.L. 

Chapter 3.— Two Sayings from the Cross, . , . 597 
By Alexander McLaren, D.D. 

Chapter 4.— God's Love in Scripture, 601 

By Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D. 

Chapter 5. — The Redemption of Humanity, . . 604 
By Rt. Hon. William E. Gladstone. 
16 



LIST OK ILLUSTRATIONS. 

24 Photographic Reproductions of 

Trie World's Celebrated Paintings. 

TITLE. ARTIST. PAGE. 

Angels Appearing to the Shepherds, Plockhorst, . . 18 

Arrival of the Shepherds, . . . . Le Rolle, ... 20 

View of Nazareth, Photograph, . . 22 

On His Way to Jerusalem, .... Mengelberg, . . 24 

In the Temple, H. Hofmann, . 26 

Jesus and John the Baptist, . . . E. Winterstein, . 28 

Christ's Farewell to his Mother, . . Plockhorst, . . 30 

Peter's Walk upon the Water, . . . Plockhorst, . . 32 

Raising the Daughter of Jairus, . . Oustav Richter, 34 

The Good Shepherd, . . . . . . Plockhorst, . . 36 

Jesus and the Woman, Emile Signal, . 38 

The Penitent, Plockhorst, . . 40 

The Sermon on the Mount, . ... Dubufe, ... 42 

Preaching from a Boat, H. Hofmann, . 44 

Casting out the Money Changers, . F. Kirchbuch, . 46 

His Entry into Jerusalem, .... Plockhorst, . . 48 

In Gethsemane, E. K. Liska, . . 50 

The Arrest, C. F. Galabert, . 52 

Leaving Pilate's Hall, Pore, . . . . , 54 

Returning from the Tomb, .... Plockhorst, . . 56 

The Women at the Tomb, .... Plockhorst, . . 58 

On the Way to Emmaus, Plockhorst, . . 60 

The Ascension, G. Biermann, . 62 

Lo, I Stand at the Door and Knock, . Karl Schonherr, 64 

17 



Angels Appearing to the Shepherds. 

Plockhorst. 



Bernhnrd Plockhorst was born at Brunswick, 1825 ; his studies were pursued at Munich and 
Paris, in Holland, Belgium, and Italy. For three years he was professor in the Art School at 
Weimar. His studio is in Berlin. 



H^h 



Calm on the listening ear of Night 
Come Heaven's melodious strains, 

Where wild Judea stretches far 
Her silver mantled plains. 

Celestial choirs from courts above, 

Shed sacred glories there ; 
And angels with their sparkling lyres, 

Make music on the air. " 

Rev. E. H. Sears. 



^§jy£- 



The heart must ring thy Christmas bell, 

Thy inward altars raise ; 
Its faith and hope thy canticles, 
And its obedience, praise. " 

Whittier. 



This scene of the Nativity illustrates Book First, Chapter One. 
19 



Arrival of the Shepherds. 

Painted in 1888 by LeRolle. 

The studio of Henry Le Rolle is in Paris, his native city. 



-?~*^f- 



The management of the light in this painting suggests the 
words : " I am come a Light into the world, that whosoever oelieveth 
in me should not abide in darkness." 



" When Christ was born, midnight gloom lightened into midday 
brightness. When Christ died, midday darkened into midnight." 

Moody's Notes from my Bible. 



21 



View of Nazareth. 

Photographed. 



-s-*-s- 



We want no prophets here ! Let him be driven 
From synagogue and city ! Let him go 
And prophesy to the Samaritans. 

The world is changed. We Elders are as nothing 
We are but yesterdays, that have no part 
Or portion in to-day ! Dry leaves that rustle, 
That make a little sound, and then are dust ! 



A carpenter's apprentice ! A mechanic, 
Whom we have seen at work here in the town 
Day after day ; a stripling without learning, 
Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God 
To men grown old in study of the Law ? " 

Longfellow's Divine Tragedy. 



This view illustrates Book First, Chapters Two and Three. 



23 



On His Way to Jerusalem. 

Painted in 1876 by Mengelberg. 



0. Mengelberg was bom in Dusseldorf in 1817. He was a pupil of Dusseldorf Academy. 
Subjects, history and portraits. 



-S-Jfc-H 



We are to think of Jesus as making this three days' journey 
nearly threescore times before he began his public ministry. 

"Palestine in that day as in this had more than three hundred 
different sorts of birds. They cooed in the groves, and twittered in 
the branches, and flitted among the rocks, and warbled in the sky, 
and skimmed the hillsides, and darted over the meadows, and vied 
with each other to make the Son of God welcome and happy." 

Geikie. 

The artist represents the holy family at the moment when 
Jesus sees Jerusalem for the first time. His eager attitude is that 
of a leader. 

" Jesus, still lead on, 
Till our rest be won. 
Heavenly Leader, still direct us, 
Still support, console, protect us, 
Till we safely stand 
In our Fatherland." 

Count Zinzendorf, IT 21. 



This painting illustrates Book First, Chapter Three. 
25 



In the Temple. 

Hofmann. 

The original painting is in the Dresden Gallery. 

Hemrieh Hofmann was bom in Darmstadt, 1824. Studied at Dusseldorf, Antwerp, Munich, 
Dresden, and four years in Italy. He is a professor in the Dresden Academy. 



-=:~$~s- 



" The legends of early Christianity tell us that night and day, 
where Jesus moved and Jesus slept, the cloud of light shone round 
about him. And so it was ; but that light was no visible Shechinah; 
it was the beauty of holiness ; it was the 'peace of God.' ' 

Dean F. W. Farrar. 



This thought is indicated by the artist in the glory which 
glorifies the figure of Jesus, even in his child-life. 



This illustration pertains to Book First, Chapter Three. 



27 



Jesus and John the Baptist 

E. Winterstein. 

v he original painting hangs in the Dresden Gallery. 



-2-*-s- 



" Antra deserti teneris sub annis." 

"In caves of the lone wilderness thy youth 

Thou hiddest, shunning the rude throng of men, 
And guarding the pure treasure of thy soul 
From the least touch of sin. 

"There to thy sacred limbs the camel gave 

A garment coarse; the rock a bed supplied; 

The stream thy thirst, locusts and honey wild 

Thy hunger satisfied." 

Breviary in Lyra Catholica. 



This painting illustrates the period m the life of Jesus that is alluded to in 
Book First, Chapter Three. 



29 



Christ's Farewell to His Mother. 

Plockhorsi. 

The original of this painting is owned by Mr. H. L. Dousman, of St. Louis. 



-5-&-S- 



This work of art represents Jesus at the moment when he was 
leaving the home of Mary to enter upon his public ministry. 

Mrs. Jameson in her "Legends of the Madonna," alludes to a 
beautiful belief concerning the continued influence of Mary upon 
the later life of Jesus : — 

" The theologians of the Middle Ages insist on the close and 
mystical relation which they assure us existed between Christ and 
his mother: However far separated, there was a constant commun- 
ion between them; and wherever he might be, in whatever acts of 
love, or mercy, or benign wisdom occupied for the good of man — 
there was also his mother present with him in the Spirit." 



31 



Peter Walking upon the Water. 

Plockhorst. 



-i-Xhl 



"Lord save me." "Short prayers are long enough. Not 
length but strength is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty 
teacher of brevity. All that is real prayer in many a long address 
might have been uttered in a petition as short as that of Peter. " 

Charles H. Spurgeon. 



This painting illustrates Book Third, Chapter Two. 



33 



Raising the Daughter of Jairus. 

Gustav Richter. 

This painting, executed in 1856, is now in the National Gallery in Berlin, 



Gustav Riehter was born in Berlin about 1822. Aprofessorinthe Royal Academy of Arts 
in Berlin, and a member of the Academies of Munich and Vienna. Died, 1884. 



-2-#-S 



''Maiden, arise! 
See, she obeys his voice ! She stirs ! She Hues I" 

Longfellow's Bivme Tragedy. 



This illustration relates to Book Third, Chapter Six. 



35 



The Good Shepherd. 

Ploekhorst. 



i-^r-h 



Art in the early Christian centuries delighted in picturing Jesus 
as the Shepherd, youthful and majestic, caring for his sheep in every 
season. 

" Come, wandering sheep, come ; 
I'll bind thee to my breast -, 
I'll bear thee to thy home, 
And lay thee down to rest." 

Lyra Catholiea. Spanish Hymn. 

'*' When in clouds and mist the weak ones stray, 

He shows again the way, 

And points to them afar 

A bright and guiding star. 

Hallelujah ! " 

Krummacher. 



This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter Three, and Book Ten, Chapter Three. 



37 



Jesus and the Woman. 

Emile Signol. 



Emile Signol was born in Paris, 1804. At twenty-six he gained as a prize the privilege uf 
studying three yeai s at Rome. A member of the Institute and an officer of the Legion of honor. 
Many of his works are at Versailles. The original of this illustration, painted in 1840, is at the 
Luxembourg Museum. 



-s^iei- 



This story of Jesus' pity for the woman and his indignant 
rebuke of her sinful accusers, is one of the earliest of the traditions 
concerning Christ ; and it is probably authentic, even if unrecorded 
in the earliest Gospel manuscripts. 

Jesus was that sort of person that a sinful woman would bathe 
his feet with her tears and a learned rabbi would seek him in the 
night upon the slopes of Olivet; the religious extremes in Judea 
finding in Jesus a sympathizing friend. 

Spurgeon relates the story of a wicked, yet half-penitent woman 
in Dublin who greeted the clergyman who called on her, by saying } 
"If Jesus Christ had been here so long as you have, he would have 
called on me long ago." 



This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter One, the story of the Woman of 
Samaria ; also Book Six, Chapter Five, Jesus' contact with the Pharisees. 



80 



The Penitent. 

Plockhorst. 



■z^y 



This picture represents the return, not perhaps of a prodigal, 
but of a young man recognizing his need of Christ's friendship, 
and the answering sympathy of him "who looking earnestly" upon 
the young man, is said to have "loved him." The angel faces 
peering out of the cloud indicated the joy in heaven, "over one 
sinner who repenteth." 

It is the appro aehableness of Jesus which led Robertson to say, 
"He who stood in divine uprightness that never faltered, felt com- 
passion for the ruined, and infinite gentleness for human fall. 
Broken, disappointed, doubting hearts in dismay and bewilderment 
never looked in vain to him. Very strange, if we stop to think of 
it, for generally human goodness repels from it evil men ; they shun 
the society and presence of men reputed good. But here was purity 
attracting evil; that was the wonder. The Son of Man was ever 
standing among the lost, and his ever predominant feelings were 
sadness for the evil in human nature, hope for the divine good in it 
and the divine image never worn out." 



This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter One, Jesus as a Pastor; and 
Book Six, Chapter Five, the Gentleness as well as the Severity of Christ. 



41 



The Sermon on the Mount, 

Eclouard Dubufe. 



The Beatitudes. 

"If we estimate character more by the standard of Christ's 
Beatitudes than what we shortsightedly call 'results,' we shall find 
some of the sublimest fruits of faith among what are commonly 
called passive virtues : — 

'• In the silent endurance that hides under the shadow of great 
affliction; in the great loveliness of that forbearance which 'suffers 
long and is kind ' ; in the charity which is not easily provoked ; in 
the forgiveness which can be buffeted for doing well and take it 
patiently ; in the smile upon the face of diseased and suffering per- 
sons, a transfiguration of the tortured features of pain brightening 
sick rooms more than the sun ; in the unostentatious heroisms of the 
household amid the daily dripping of small cares ; in the noiseless 
conquests of a love too reverential to complain ; in resting in the 

Lord and waiting patiently for him." 

Bishop Huntington. 



This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter Three. 



43 



Preaching from the Boat. 

Hofmann. 

The original of this painting is in the National Gallery at Berlin. 



-i-y^y 



This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter Three. It was 
said by Jesus, "I have not come to heal the siek, but to preach the 
Kingdom of God." In these preaching tours, we are to think of the 
preacher as adapting his words to the hour and the scene. He who 
upon the land told the story of the Sower, may have told his water- 
side hearers about the Mustard-seed, since the lake shores were 
lined with this plant, or he may have spoken of the Goodly Pearl 
from the waters of the Arabian Gulf, which he saw a caravan mer- 
chant seeking to sell at Capernaum. 

The story of the Fishers and the drag-net might have illus- 
trated a transaction going on in the sight of his hearers at that very 
moment. 

We can but think of the privilege of those who listened to the 
preaching of Jesus. "Certainly," says St. Jerome, " a flame of 
fire and starry brightness flashed from his eyes, and the majesty 
of the Godhead shone in his face." 



45 



Casting out the Money-Changers. 

F. Kirehbuch. 



-3-*-> 



This painting, which illustrates the reference to this seene in 
Book Five, Chapter Two, and in Book Seven, Chapter One, is based 
upon the story in the Gospels of the two cleansing s of the temple ; 
one at the commencement of Jesus' public ministry at the April Pass- 
over after his baptism in January, and again at the beginning of 
the Passion week. 

The need of such acts has been well stated by Bean Farrar, 
which I present in condensed form. 

" In the court of the Gentiles were penned flocks of sheep and 
oxen, while the drovers and pilgrims stood bartering around them ; 
there were the men with great wicker cages filled with doves ; and 
under the shadow of the arcades, the money-changers, with tables 
covered with small coin. 

This Court of the Gentiles, which was a witness that the temple 
should be a house of prayer to all nations, had been degraded into a 
place for foulness, like shambles, and for bustling commerce, like a 
densely crowded mart, while the lowing of oxen and bleating of 
sheep, the babel of language, the huckstering and wrangling, and 
clinking of money might be heard in the adjoining courts, disturbing 
the prayer of the priests and the Levites' chant. " 



47 



His Entry into Jerusalem. 

Plockhorst. 



-f-*-S- 



"A great multitude of people 

Fills all the street ; and riding on an ass 

Comes one of nolle aspect, like a king ! 

The people spread their garments in the way, 

And scatter branches of palm trees ! 

Blessed 

Is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! 

Hosanna in the highest." 

The Divine Tragedy 



This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chapter One. 



4S 



In Gethsemane. 

K K. Liska. 



l-Dhh 



" Aeeording to all the consenting testimonies, the Lord of Glory 

went through death, to save us from it. He drank the eup of bitter 

woe, that we might quaff from heavenly chaliees the wine of life. 

All faintness and gloom which his mysterious being could know, he 

folded around, he took within him, that we might walk celestial 

streets with palm and harp, in robes of white." 

R. S. Storrs, LL.D. 



This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chanter Three. 



m. 



The Arrest. 

Charles F. Galabert. 

Charles F. Galabert was born at Nimes, 1819. A pupil of Delaroehe. An officer of tlie 
Legion of Honor. 



j-a-s- 



" What lights are these ? What torches glare and glisten 

Upon the swords and armor of these men ? 

And there among them, Judas Iscariot ! " 

The Divine Tragedy. 



This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chapter Four. 



53 



Leaving Pilate's Hall. 

Gustave Bore. 

Paul Gustave Bore was born in Strasburg, 1833 ; died, Paris, 1883. 



H~#rh- 



This work of art which illustrates Book Seven, Chapter Five, 
was painted in the years 1867-1872. It was not completed when 
the Franco-German war broke out, and during the Siege of Paris the 
canvas, twenty feet by thirty, was buried for security against injury 
by shot and shell. 

This painting was included in the American Exhibition of 
Bore's works. 



55 



John and Mary Returning from the Tomb. 

Plockhorst. 

This painting is in the Lowenstein Gallery, Moscow. 



-i>*rh 



Stabat Mater Dolorosa. 

" Who, on Christ's dear mother gazing, 
Pierced by anguish so amazing, 

Born of woman, would not weep ? 
Who, on Christ's dear mother thinking, 
Such a cup of sorrow drinking, 

Would not share her sorrows deep ? " 
From the Latin of Jacopone de Benedietus, a Francisean monk, ob. A. D. 1306. 



57 



The Women at the Tomb of Christ. 

Plockhorst. 



This painting which illustrates Book Eight, Chapter One, luas a Medal work at the Berlin 
Exhibition. 



K-#~S 



PONE LUCTUM, MAGDALENA. 

" Mary ! leap for joy and gladness, 

Christ has triumphed o'er the tomb ; 
He hath closed the scene of sadness, 

He of death, hath sealed the doom ; 
Whom thou late in death wast mourning, 
Welcome now to life returning. " 

From the Latin. Lyra Catholiea. 







■ ->. 



. 




V m 



i 4| 



On the Way to Emmaus. 

Plockhorst. 

The original painting is owned by Mr. H. L. Dousman, of St. Louis. 



-3-*-! 



"From this episode I learn that Christ is willing to be the com- 
panion of my life-journey, until I reach the heavenly home. He 
that walketh with Jesus, walketh surely, his journey will be safe and 
he will never miss the right road." 

A i .port of Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler's words upon this incident. 



To illustrate Book Eight, Chapter One. 



61 



The Ascension. 

Gottlieb Biermann, Berlin. 



s-*-* — ■ 

: Rise, glorious Conqueror, rise, — 
Into thy native skies, 

Assume thy right. 
And where in many a fold 
The clouds are backward rolled — 
Pass through the gates of gold, 

And reign in light." 

Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges. 



To illustrate Book Eight, Chapter Three. 



63 



Lo, I Stand at the Door and Knock. 

Karl Schonherr. 

Karl Sehonherr was born in Saxony, 1824. A professor at Dresden Academy. 



-5~3^S- 



In the Chapel at Wellesley College there is a memorial window 
presented by Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, which represents 
Jesus knocking at the door of the heart. The very first Sunday it 
was seen, one student, who had hesitated long to undo the door, 
yielded to the Pilgrim knocking and let her Saviour in. 

"Jesus Christ is no burglar," said a loving pastor, and when 
he said that, one, who had been long waiting for the knocking Christ 
to break through, yielded, and opened the door for Christ to enter. 

" In the silent midnight watches, 

List — thy bosom's door : 
How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh, 

Knocketh evermore. 
Say not 'tis thy pulses beating, 

' Tis thy heart of sin : 

'Tis thy Saviour knocks and crieth, 

'Rise and let me in."' 

A. C. Coxe. 



65 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

What Our Elder Brother is to Me. 

^x& 



(5p|T every disciple in every age were to report what 
Jesus Christ is to him, he would but describe the link 
by which he is united to God in Christ, and the very 
variety of these personal impressions would more 
fully set forth the character of the Son of Man in its adap- 
tation to the wants of all men in all ages. The fact that 
there is a four-sided Gospel story encourages the painters, 
poets, and teachers of the world to attempt the portrayal of 
certain attributes of Jesus, which are dwelt upon by the 
imagination of the artist, the singer, or the moralist. 

What Jesus Christ is to me is my message to the world. 
It is my individual answer to the question, " What think 
ye of Christ ? " To contribute one's own impression of the 
Gospel portraiture, to present the evangel in its modifi- 
cation of personal life, is one's best contribution to the 
thought of his generation. " What I was as an artist once 
seemed to me of some importance," said an eminent Eng- 
lishman, " but what I am as a disciple of Christ interests 
me now." What think ye of Christ, sets aside all other 
questions as of secondary import. He alone whose art or 
calling is the expression of his view of Christ is the happy 

66 



WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO ME. 

man : I am indeed content in drudgery since I know that 
my Lord was uncomplaining and faithful as a hand-toiler ; 
or I am with great joy an artist, since he too loved the 
green earth and the blue sea, and made everything beauti- 
ful. Or, if this is not correctly stated, it is to be said that 
he is the happy man who is always picturing to himself 
what Jesus Christ said or did, or would say or do in one's 
own circumstances, — who is always seeking to conform his 
life to the Divine Ideal. When this is the main thought in 
life, all else is dignified, and one as truly leads an artist life 
as Raphael or Angelo, in his attempt to depict the char- 
acter of the Invisible. 

"Who, indeed," asks Herder, "could venture, after 
John, to write the life of Christ ? " If however our poor, 
awkward, uninspired words can give no true idea of that 
mysterious Person as he was in Galilee and Judea, yet in 
thoughtfully contemplating the character of Jesus as it 
was unfolded in his earthly mission, and seeking to form a 
mental likeness of the Saviour and delineate him for the 
eyes of others, our own mental conception of him is likely 
to be more perfectly formed, and our picture will have an 
individuality about it, — not perfect, but for immediate 
purposes more perfect than if we had never attempted it. 
Desiring, therefore, as we do, more than all things else, a 
growing likeness to the character of the JSTazarene, we 
must, for our own delight and profit, look again and again 
at this story ; and question about it, and talk about it, till 
it glows before us in colors fresh as the first light of the 
morning, which never wearies us. 

67 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Nor is the true character of the Master seriously misrep- 
resented by the attempts made by a great and varied host 
of writers, to set forth, each in his own way, what Jesus 
Christ is to him. As we get new ideas of the glory of the 
sun, by its very power to shine out through the mists or 
clouds which often intercept its beams at its rising, so 
every effort to set forth the glory of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness affords a new illustration of his power, in that his 
shining is not hindered by the multitude of words which 
are — so vainly — said to illustrate his life. There is there- 
fore some advantage in the attempt of different persons to 
report how they read the story of Jesus, as the very day- 
dawn is varied by the different combinations of atmos- 
pheric phenomena morning by morning. But it is the 
clouds which receive glory, and not the sun ; no cloud adds 
to the light, but it receives from the light that which 
makes us glad to gaze upon it. So those who seek to 
describe the life of Jesus add nothing to his glory, save as 
they receive from the contemplation of his character that 
spiritual quickening which leads men to glorify him. 

It is the hope of gaining this spiritual advantage which 
leads us to turn again and again to the story of Jesus of 
Nazareth. "If," says Dr. R. S. Storrs, " the early legend 
had been true, and the napkin of Veronica had kept the 
imprint of the Saviour's face as he wiped with it the 
bloody sweat on his way to the Cross, the city which con- 
tained it would have been, by means of it, the center of 
concourse for mankind." To reproduce his likeness has 
been the unutterable longing of those who have loved him 



WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO ME. 

in all ages. It is of perennial interest, to paint the Lord 
Jesus in accordance with one's own ideal of him ; and the 
world's galleries of art have been crowded in each new 
generation with a new series of the Madonna and the Holy 
Child, or new portraiture of the scenes in his life. New 
thoughts arise concerning him, new kings arise to do him 
homage, — let then his life be reproduced anew, for every 
new generation. 

Like the magnetic mountain in Arabian story, the 
cradle in Bethlehem attracts all travelers whose ships pass 
that way ; and the study of his life becomes the center to 
which the devout mind is more and more drawn with 
irresistible influence. 

It was said by D'Aubigne to a doubting student, that 
the main question to decide was the Incarnation : with 
that, all difficulties are easily resolved, — without that, there 
is no need of resolving any. To know God and Jesus 
Christ is enough, — to know God through Jesus Christ ; 
since it is easier to know much about an incarnate Deity 
in human limitations, than to know a little about the First 
Cause in the attributes characteristic of God. If, there- 
fore, we seek to know God through Jesus Christ, let us 
exult with Faber : "To think, to speak, to write perpetu- 
ally of the grandeurs of Jesus, — what joy on earth is like 
it ? That which is to be our occupation in eternity, usurps 
more and more with sweet encroachment the length and 
breadth of time. Earth grows into heaven, as we come to 
live and breathe in the atmosphere of the Incarnation. " 



69 



BOOK ONE. 



-i£&*hS&- 



Our Pattern in Yontti 



^3§i£^ 



Chapter 1. Page 71. 

The Manger Child, 



Chapter 2. Page 81. 

The Home at Nazareth. 



Chapter 3. Page 91. 

The Boyhood of Jesuis, 



CHAPTER ONE. 

The Manger Child. 

NO other event in the history of the world has so aroused 
the enthusiasm of poets and painters, philosophers 
and religious devotees, statesmen and men of affairs, 
as the birth of Jesus Christ. To this the world is never 
weary of turning; childhood, youth, early manhood and 
womanhood, and mature years, — all ages interested in the 
Babe of Bethlehem. 

The angels in heaven, too, found in this event new occa- 
sion for song, and their melodious voices were heard upon 
the earth. 

" It came upon the midnight clear, 
That glorious song of old, 
From angels bending near the earth 

To touch their harps of gold : 
1 Peace to the earth, good- will to men 

From heaven's all-gracious King.' 
The earth in solemn stillness lay 
To hear the angels sing." 

— E. H. Sears. 

" Hark, how all the welkin rings, — 
Glory to the King of Kings ! 
Peace on earth and mercy mild, 
God and sinners reconciled. 
[Book I.] 71 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Joyful, all ye nations, rise, 
Join the triumph of the skies ; 
Universal nature, say, — 
< Christ the Lord is born to-day.' " 

— Charles Wesley. 

" Peace on earth, good will from heaven, 

Reaching far as man is found ; 

Souls redeemed, and sins forgiven, 

Loud our golden harps 'shall sound. 

Hallelujah!" 

— John Cawood. 

"Glory to God in the highest :" this is nothing else 
than the first table of the moral law, — love to God. On 
the earth peace, good will to men : this is nothing else than 
the second table of the law, — love to man. This is the 
angelic interpretation of the Advent. 

The apostles are spoken of as " preaching peace through 
Jesus Christ." Their message was " the Gospel of peace." 
The New Testament benediction, fourteen times repeated, 
is " Peace be with you." "These things," quoth the Master, 
" I have spoken unto you that ye, might have peace." 
" Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you." The 
holy child Jesus came as the Prince of Peace. 

" ' What means this glory round our feet,' 

The magi mused, ' more bright than morn? ' 
And voices chanted, clear and sweet, 

< To-day the Prince of Peace is born.' 

" ' What means that star,' the shepherds said, 

< That brightens through the rocky glen? ' 
And angels, answering overhead, 

Sang, < Peace on earth, good will to men.' " 

— James Russell Lowell. 

72 



THE HOLY CHILD. 

" Yet with the woes of sin and strife, 

The world has suffered long ; 
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled 

Two thousand years of wrong ; 
And men, at war with men, hear not 

The love-song which they bring : 
Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife, 

And hear the angels sing- 

" Still through the cloven skies they come, 

With peaceful wings unfurled ; 
And still their heavenly music floats 

O'er all the weary world : 
Above its sad and lowly plains 

They bend on heavenly wing, 
And ever o'er its babel sounds 

The blessed angels sing. 

" O ye, beneath life's crushing load 

Whose forms are bending low ; 
Who toil along the climbing way 

With painful steps and slow, — 
Look now, for glad and golden hours 

Come swiftly on the wing : 
Oh, rest beside the weary road, 

And hear the angels sing. 

" For lo, the days are hastening on 
By prophet-bards foretold, 
When with the ever circling years 
Comes round the age of gold ; 
When Peace shall over all the earth 

Its ancient splendors fling, 
And the whole world send back the song 
Which now the angels sing." 

— Edmund H. Sears, D.D. 

THAT the birth of the Good Shepherd, who was to lay 
down his life for his flock, should be made known 
first to the shepherds near Bethlehem, accords well with 

73 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the story of the manger. The world's people as such abide 
to-day in the fields, in pastoral or rural calling ; four or 
five out of every six of the population of this globe to-day, 
being interested in caring for sheep and cattle. And as 
to their present average condition, two out of every five 
would esteem the cave where Jesus was born, a very 
palace ; living, as they do, in circumstances more humble 
than the wayfarers who sought hospitality on this memo- 
rable night at Bethlehem. So true is it that our Lord took 
to himself the state of the average man. 

The poor man's child in lonely lot, — - 
In field, perchance, or hovel cot, — 
Is dear to Him of humble birth ; 
His cry the sweetest sound on earth. 
Can e'er the Manger-Child forget 
The woes of earth His lambs beset? 
The piteous bleat of anguished hours 
Is heard by Him in heavenly bowers, — 
And light divine for new-born child 
Illumes the night, howe'er so wild. 

" rf OY to the world, the Lord is come : 
I Let earth receive her King ; 

Let every heart prepare Him room, 
And heaven and nature sing." 

— Isaac Watts. 

" All my heart this night rejoices, 
As I hear, 
Far and near, 
Sweetest angel voices : 
« Christ is born,' their choirs are singing, 
Till the air 
Everywhere 
Now with joy is ringing." 

— Paul Gerhardt, 1656. 

74 



THE HOLY CHILD. 

Save on the west, there are deep valleys around the 
village of the Manger ; fertile vales that favor the flocks. 
Aroused from their devout and withal sleepy medi- 
tations, by the glory gleaming from the opening skies — 
as if the celestial gates had been flung back and the 
eyes of the angel hosts were flashing through the night to 
search the dark streets of Bethlehem upon its ridge — the 
shepherds with faces now aflame with heavenly radiance, 
swept noiselessly onward in search for the cradle of Christ ; 
and everywhere wings of gold were down sweeping, and 
the night was illumined by the glory of the Lord shining 
about their feet, as they advanced with tuneful step. 

" What sudden blaze of song 

Spreads o 'er the expanse of heaven ; 
In waves of light it thrills along 
The angelic signal given : 
« Glory to God,' from yonder central fire, 
Flows out the echoing lay, beyond the starry choir." 

— John Keble. 

THE Romans little noticed it ; they were all absorbed in 
noting the youthful prince Augustus. Yet the birth 
of Jesus forms the grand turning point in the world's 
history : the centuries which had gone before, were now 
sealed up ; and the doors were closed on all ages since 
Adam : henceforth men began to count the years anew, — as 
if the true life of the world had just commenced, and a 
new order of time was now to unfold upon the earth, the 

75 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

years of our Lord.* And this grand era had its beginning, 
not as we would have ordered it. We would have had the 
new-born King laid in a cradle decked with diamonds, in a 
temple radiant with silver and gold and gems of every 
hue : but he brought with him no splendid house from 
heaven, choosing the rather a manger in a chamber hung 
with spiders' webs. 

The religious pole of the globe, that attracts the thoughts 
and guides the steps of all who wander over its surface, is 
found in a stable at Bethlehem. Yet vain it is, O man, 
that Christ were born in Bethlehem, if never born in thee. 
Has not the inn of his birth become the shrine of all 
nations, and does he not receive all comers ? 



W 



ISE were the men who came, when they saw the beams 
of the star out of Jacob. 

" 'Tis now fulfilled what God decreed, — 
' From Jacob shall a star proceed ' : 
And lo, the eastern sages stand, 
To read in heaven the Lord's command." 

— Latin hymn translated by J. Chandler. 

* The Christian era, instead of the Roman year, was first used by the 
Venerable Bede, early in the eighth century ; and was soon after used by 
the kings of France ; and it was in error by four years, being so much 
later than the birth of Christ. Edersheim thinks that the birth of the 
Saviour is more likely to have occurred the 25th of December than any 
other date, and that it could not have been later than the beginning of 
February. Geikie says, between December and February : Geisler, Feb- 
ruary. Other authorities suggest different dates. All the old chro- 
nology is difficult. No one pretends to know when Alexander the Great 

76 



THE HOLY CHILD. 

As celestial voices had guided unlearned men to Christ, 
so now a finger of light directed the magi. As the devout 
shepherds had been eagerly watching for the coming Mes- 
siah, so these wise men, by Jewish books scattered in the 
East, knew that the set time had come for the appearance 
of the King of kings upon this earth. 

The imaginative Bede says, that Caspar was a ruddy 
youth, who brought frankincense for the infant Saviour's 
worship ; and that Melchior was an old man with a long 
white beard, who brought a gift of gold, as if tribute 
to a king ; and that Balthasar was very dark, with a heavy 
beard, who brought myrrh, as if for our Lord's burial. Yet 
the soul's adoration on the part of any poor disciple in this 
day, is worth more than all the gifts of the magi. When 
we reflect upon this strange story of myrrh and frankin- 
cense and gold from the Orient, we cannot but follow in 
imagination those men endowed with heavenly wisdom, — 
fire-worshipers, pagans as we should say, seeing the Invisi- 
ble God through the fire, — who journeyed far to greet the 
infant King of the Jews. And we can never forget the 
sweet story of the ancient church which declares that 
Christ's doubting disciple found the magi in the distant 
east a few years after Christ's resurrection, and there told 

was born, as to the month or the year : that he conquered the world is 
known. Upon the whole the Christian world is right in singing : — 

" Chime, ye bells of Christmas tide, 
Let the joyful chorus peal : 
Gates of heav'n are open wide ; 
Low before our Lord we kneel." 

77 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

them the full story of Jesus, and baptized them ; and that 
they went forth into more distant countries preaching 
Christ and him crucified ; and that like so many of those 
early Christians they died as martyrs, — receiving thus 
heavenly crowns from the Babe of Bethlehem in return for 
their early gifts, and their life of faith. 

So early did the Gentiles begin to gather at the feet of 
Jesus, — the Oriental magi, the Syrophcenician, and the 
Greeks; all in token of days to come. And the wise men 
of the Gentiles have come in all ages bearing gifts to the 
Holy Child.* 

THE magi inquired of the rabbis in Jerusalem, where 
Christ should be born. "And," says Jeremy Taylor, 
" they told them right ; but the wise men went to Christ and 
found him, and the doctors sat still and went not." And 
later on these same blind and perverse doctors, who were 
bound to reject Jesus anyway, said, "We know this man 
whence he is ; but when the Messiah cometh, no man 
knoweth whence he is." 

As a child, Jesus was rejected of men. Strange was the 
contrast between the conduct of humble shepherd, devout 
philosopher, holy man and maid in the temple, and that of 

*"TTe all know," says Geikie, "how lowly a reverence is paid to 
him in passage after passage by Shakespeare, the greatest intellect known 
in its wide, many-sided splendor. Men like Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, 
Newton, Milton, set the name of Jesns Christ above every other. Spinoza 
calls Christ the symbol of divine wisdom ; Kant and Jacobi hold him up 
as a symbol of ideal perfection ; and Schelling and Hegel, as that of the 
union of the divine and human." 

78 



THE HOLY CHILD. 

bloody Herod. But he who had already slain his own 
brother and his own wife and three of his own sons, and he 
who ordered a massacre of the heads of many distinguished 
families for the day of his funeral so as to cause general 
mourning, found peculiar joy in causing lamentation among 
the mothers who dwelt near Bethlehem. And although the 
slaughter of the innocents could not have comprised a very 
great number in the region of so small a village, yet the 
mandate was one which would not scruple at mere numbers 
whether a score or a thousand, if anything were to be 
gained by multiplying victims. 

These holy children, the first of that great multitude 
who have been slain in the name of Jesus, have been 
pictured by Hunt, in cherub forms, hovering over the path- 
way of the Holy Family in their flight to Egypt. This 
" Triumph of the Innocents," is a poem as well as a paint- 
ing, — and a prophecy, too, dear to motherhood so oft stricken 
by the hand of violence. 

WHILE men thought the Wonderful Infant slain, the 
Lord was hiding himself in the ancient home of Israel 
in the valley of the Nile. And it were nothing very strange 
if there were some truth in old story, that the flight was so 
sudden, the family suffered from poverty in a foreign 
country ; * that he who afterwards had not where to lay his 
head, now wore fine flax gathered by his mother seeking 

* On the other hand, Dr. T. De Witt Taxmage suggests that the 
gold given by the wise men was of timely service in this journey. 

79 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

charity from door to door. Neither were it strange, if 
Mary had some forebodings of a life of persecution and 
sorrow for her son, whose painful wanderings began so 
early. The visiting angel did not reveal to the mother that 
her son was to be "The Man of Sorrows" ; but, torn from 
her home by persecution for his sake, she might now have 
begun to suspect it. I can hardly wonder, therefore, that 
the men of early times, who reflected on these hours in 
Egypt, should have represented the mother of Jesus with 
mind prepared for every grief, and becoming acquainted 
with the future life of her son, baptism and temptation, 
scourging and cross, — through the prophetic inspiration of 
a poor woman of Egypt, who treated the holy family with 
great courtesy, and who begged as an alms the gift of true 
repentance and eternal life. 

That such a scene should come down to us in the paint- 
ings of the early Church is only an indication of the popular 
belief that the peculiar glory of Christ, manifested in the 
strange portents of his birth, was made known in the land 
of his exile. 

Setting aside old traditions, we know that Joseph did 
wisely in seeking his acquaintances, and perhaps his kin- 
dred, in Egypt ; there being, it is said, about a million of 
his countrymen settled there at the time. 

Yet a voice was heard from heaven : "Out of Egypt 
have I called my son." And Jesus henceforth abode in 
Nazareth. 



80 



CHAPTER TWO. 

The Home at Nazareth. 



-*S>JBKS>- 



(5j"|"~ HAVE often wished that I could picture to my- 
self the early home of Jesus, and see what the 
wondering eyes of this boy saw when they first 
opened to notice the surroundings of his village and 
the wider scenery of his native country. The Mosaic law 
speaks of the desolation into which the Holy Land would 
fall if the Jews were unfaithful to their religious privileges ; 
and there is represented " a stranger from a far country 
going to see the plagues of the land, and the sicknesses 
which the Lord hath laid upon it." Yet, even in its decay, 
travelers from all lands find that in Palestine which makes 
it the joy of their lives to visit it. 

The physical characteristics of the ancient home of 
God's people are such that it has been sometimes called a 
" Museum Land," in which may be found choice specimens 
of almost every kind of scenery in the world. Within 
limits no larger than one of the smaller states of New 
England or a single county of one of our western or south- 
ern states, we find a hundred and fifty miles of wild sea- 
coast ; and mountains rising eight or ten thousand feet 

[Book I.] 81 6 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

above the sea ; and the swift Jordan makes its bed in the 
bottom of a ravine some three thousand feet deep, — in the 
first part of its course running through lakes among the 
hills which are marvels of beauty, and losing itself at last 
in the salt sea. The climate is as varied as the face of the 
country ; both unmelting snows and tropical heat in the 
land of promise. And there was in former ages a great 
variety in the products of the soil. 

Palestine is like a platform, or stage, standing apart, for 
the display of the dramatic life of the Saviour of men. It 
is like an upland islet, or rather peninsula pushing down 
from the north, between the Mediterranean on the west, the 
Jordan ravine and seas of sand on the east, and the south- 
ern desert toward Egypt. West of the Jordan the northern 
portion of this platform is but twenty miles wide, and only 
twice that on the south opposite the Dead Sea ; and it is 
in length less than sevenscore miles from Dan to Beer- 
sheba. A long plain extends along the coast, narrow at the 
north, and widening toward the south. It was once 
wooded in part, and a part was cultivated. All Palestine 
is a table-land, from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above 
the sea, cut here and there by east and west water courses. 
Jerusalem and Olivet, Hebron and Bethel, Ebal and Geri- 
zim, are from eight to twelve hundred feet higher than the 
general face of the country. This hilly Palestinian plat- 
form is nowhere level, in any considerable area, except in 
the red plain of volcanic soil called Esdraelon, of some 
twelve by fifteen miles, near Nazareth. 



82 



THE HOME AT NAZARETH. 

THE upland basin of Nazareth is twelve hundred feet 
above the sea. It is surrounded by fifteen gently 
rounded hills, from four to six hundred feet high. The valley 
between them may be described as star-shaped, about a mile 
across, with five fingers thrust between eminences on every 
side. The walls of these hills make an amphitheater, folding 
like rose leaves, and they shut out the winter winds from 
the sunny nook which offers garden sites to the Nazarenes. 
The brown bottom lands are very rich ; and we see flocks 
of goats or sheep nibbling in the green hollows, or we see 
fields of barley or wheat, — and there are oraDges, pome- 
granates, fig trees, and mulberries, and so many olives that 
the rabbis say, " the Galileans wade in oil." The pear or 
apple orchards are sometimes inclosed by hedges of prickly 
pear ; and there are stone walls like those in New England. 
Among brilliant flowers, we recognize the lily, the tulip, 
the anemone, the poppies, and the wild geraniums. The 
skirts of the hills are covered with gardens, — citrons, cab- 
bages and carrots, lettuce, mustard and peas, growing 
everywhere ; and the heights are clad with vineyards. 
Among the birds with which Jesus must have been familiar 
in his boyhood, we note the linnet, the goldfinch, the yel- 
low hammer, the thrush, the lark, the house martin, the 
wren, the blackbird, and the robin. 

The narrow streets of Nazareth run along in irregular 
terraces upon the southern slope of one of the highest of 
the hills ; perhaps two hundred feet from the bottom, and 
four hundred from the top. There is no distant view on 

83 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

account of the surrounding hills ; but one sees the fertile 
valley and the green slopes, with here and there sharp 
ledges breaking roughly out of the mountain sides, like 
that from which the Nazarenes once tried to cast down 
Jesus to kill him. The bald limestone ledges, from which 
the soil has been washed, are snow-white ; and the dwell- 
ing houses look like cubical blocks of yellowish limestone, 
low and flat-roofed, dazzling in the sun, with walls occa- 
sionally relieved by a climbing vine. There are no win- 
dows, — light comes in through the door ; and there is need 
to light a candle, if a piece of silver is lost in a corner. 
A rich man's house, however, has an inner court and more 
freedom for light. 

Down upon the hillside below the city a bubbling spring 
bursts forth from a fissure in the limestone. vThe water is 
as sweet to-day as when Mary, the mother of Jesus, went 
there. It runs so copiously as to make a brooklet — once, if 
not to-day, running wild — racing along among the reeds 
and tall grasses, the willows and the alders, to water the 
vale below. It is the home of the hyacinth, the yellow 
water-lily, the sweet marjoram, the mint, and thyme ; just 
as they appeared to the Babe of Bethlehem, when carried 
in the arms of his mother along the singing, sparkling 
waters eighteen hundred years ago. 



THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD. 



■v 



S upon the stainless skies 

Peaceful hangs the new-born sun ; 
So upon thy bosom lies, 
Mother pure, thy Holy One. 

84 



THE HOME AT NAZARETH. 

Ah, how lovely that repose, 

Mother with the Infant fair, — 
Twined, as with the tender rose, 

Violet and lily are." 

— Latin hymn of the 15th century. 

It was in the family of his mother that Jesus learned 
the life of love, and very largely his human wisdom. Mary 
was peculiarly fitted to aid his early life, and to prepare 
him for his future work : " Mary, the meekest and lowliest 
of maidens, — it is her sweetness, her grace, her modesty, 
which is the fitting ornament in her peerless work." * 

" It was long," says an English preacher, f " long before 
she revealed to anyone the message of the angel. Her 
silence is, next to that of Christ, the most remarkable 
thing in this history. She was a woman of quiet thought, 
of solitary prayer, of tacit power. It is impossible to get 
rid of the belief that this had its natural influence on the 
development of the human nature of Christ. We see at 
least that in the highest and noblest way our Saviour's life 
embodies this strength of waiting, this silence of growth, 
this love of lonely meditation." 

The highest degree of mental force is exhibited by 
Mary's hymn of thanksgiving. And it seems likely that 
she bore a part in Bible making, by relating the details of 
Jesus' birth, as they are recorded in the Gospel of Luke. 

It has been also urged by one of our most suggestive 
writers]: that Mary showed herself a woman of remarkably 

* Canon H. P. Liddon. f Stopford A. Brooke, D.D. 
J Horace Bushnell, D.D. 

85 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

well balanced character, from her ability to commend 
herself to Joseph under circumstances peculiarly trying ; 
her calmness and composure of spirit under the strange 
ordeal confirming in his mind the dream he had of her 
integrity. 

Then, too, that the mother should keep all the wise say- 
ings of her son in her breast, was a mark of rare wisdom. 
She was quiet, and praised God silently, instead of gadding 
among the neighbors boasting of her strangely precocious 
child. "Had Christ's mother," says Bushnell, "been a 
forward and loud woman, advertising always her miracu- 
lous child, reporting his strangely phenomenal acts, re- 
peating his speeches and telling what great expectations 
she had of him, it really seems that she might have quite 
spoiled his Messiahship. At any rate he must have under- 
taken his ministry at an immense and almost fatal disad- 
vantage." 

Mary's expectancy as to the character of Jesus must, 
however, have led her to tell him, as child or youth, the 
story of the angelic annunciation, and of the kings out of 
the Orient ; which could but have excited inquiry in the 
mind of Jesus, and prompted his search for the meaning of 
that law which he was to fulfill. 

That Christ appreciated the character of her who bore 
him, we have every reason to believe ; and the even bal- 
ance of his character leads us to look in on Mary's home 
in the early manhood of Jesus, as a place of peculiar com- 
fort to the mother in the companionship of her beloved and 
loving son. And in the miracle at Cana no reprimand is 

86 



THE HOME AT NAZARETH. 

implied in the Greek words used, though our translation 
seems a little harsh to our occidental ears.* 

It is, however, clear enough that Christ understood his 
kingdom to be founded on no peculiar honors to Mary. 
Everywhere the idea of obedience to God was set forth as 
the first thing, and the highest honor possible to anyone 
was to be found only in that. When, therefore, a woman, 
after the oriental manner of speaking, uttered a blessing 
upon his mother, Jesus said, " Yea, rather, blessed are they 
that hear the word of God and keep it." And directly after, 
his mother was said to be standing on the borders of the 
crowd, which had packed itself into the court where he 
was, and Christ said to those about him, "Who is my 
mother?" "Who are my brethren ?" And after a pause, 
when he had looked round about on all those who were 
near him, drawing the eyes of all to himself, then he 
stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, 
with eyes full of love, and lips of gentle accent, "Behold 
my mother, and my brethren : They are these which hear 
the word of God and do it. For whosoever shall do the 
will of God my Father which is in heaven, the same is my 
brother, and my sister, and mother." So far only as Mary 
was a holy woman, was she nearly related to her own son. 

Doubtless in those days when the zeal for his Father's 
house consumed him, Mary herself joined in with the rest 
of her family in fearing that Jesus was beside himself. 

* This episode indicates that the hour had come, in which Jesus was 
to act, not merely as the son of Mary, but as the Messiah. 

87 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

That was what they said,— that he was out of balance. 
They could not appreciate the greatness of his mission, nor 
the means he thought necessary for carrying it out. And 
her heart sank and almost broke, when he, whom she knew 
to be the most prudent and thoughtful of men, went clash- 
ing against the religious authorities of his people, — against 
scribe and Sadducee, Pharisee and priest, the high priest 
of God, and all revered rabbis of the holy people ; and 
entered into that path which led to a slave's death on the 
cross. 

When the loving son, in dying, gave the care of his 
mother as a legacy to John, the beloved disciple in taking 
her to his own home did not glorify her and worship her. 
Christ, not Mary, is the prominent figure in the Gospel.* 

In the days following the resurrection and ascension of 
Jesus, we find the mother of the Lord among the disciples, 
of like faith with them, and with them counted as being 
next of kin to the glorified Redeemer, f 

" Say of me as the angel said, < Thou art 
The blessedest of women.' — Blessedest, — ■ 
Not holiest, not noblest ; no high name, — 
Whose height, misplaced, may pierce me like a shame 
When I sit meek in heaven." 

— Mrs. Browning. 

* John, with whom the mother of Jesus lived, and who survived her, 
said nothing of her death or life ; and no New Testament writer outside 
of the Evangelists ever spoke of her. 

f Acts 1 : 14. The last time Mary is spoken of in the Bible, was 
when she attended a prayer meeting. 

Yet, having said so much, the fact remains that the mother of Jesus 
has in the world's love so warm a place, that universal manhood is loyal 

88 



THE HOME AT NAZARETH. 

IS it not hard for us with our knowledge of our Re- 
deemer's later life and his death and his glory, to think 
of Jesus as a child at home in the house of Mary and 
Joseph? How strange the scenes, if, with all our present 
ideas of Jesus and his disciples, we could have looked 
about in the time of his childhood ; — to see that rough and 
ready young fisherman Peter, swearing up and down the 
shores of the lake, or drawing stout nets full of fish from 
its waters ; or to see the lad Saul in Tarsus learning the 
tentmaker's trade in view of the snowy Taurus, and after- 
wards studying as a young man in Jerusalem ; or to see 
the child John the beloved, or that John who lived as a 
hermit in the deserts meditating on God's promises to give 
Messiah to Israel ; or if we could have seen the Messiah 
himself, a boy in house and carpenter's shop at Nazareth, — 
as the early painters depict him when a little child, amused 
at handling shavings in the shop of Joseph. Brothers 
were there, first to play, then to toil in the shop. 

Gibbon, the historian, relates that in the reign of Domi- 
tian, A. D. 81-96, two grandsons of Jude, the brother of 

to her, and womanhood has for her inestimable reverence. She came 
once, as a stranger, says the legend, to a German village, and lived among 
the people as if she had long been one of their neighbors ; her guise being 
adapted to every age and class. To the aged women her kindly features 
looked old ; and to the maidens she was a light hearted girl ; the young 
matrons believed that she was a happy mother ; but when a child clung 
to her clothing and looked up into her eyes of infinite affection, the little 
one discerned what no one else knew, that she was Mary the mother of 
Jesus : age after age the world will be always a little child, and the 
world's heart will love her. 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Christ, were then living on a farm of twenty-four acres 
near Cocaba, and that their hands were hard with toil. 
They were brought before the Roman authorities and 
accused of being descendants of the ancient kings of Israel. 
And they confessed that they were the sons of David, and 
relatives of Jesus ; but they declared that the Messiah's 
kingdom was spiritual : and it seems not unlikely that 
they thought the Messiah had come. This incident makes 
it the more real to us that our Saviour had boy playmates 
whom he called brothers, Jude for one. And his later life 
of unspeakable dignity had its beginning in a life among 
the lowly. He who was to found a new household of faith 
was first obedient to the laws of domestic life. 

And he, in whom all the families of the earth were to be 
blessed, learned as the oldest child to prove a blessing to 
younger children in the house of Mary ; and upon the death 
of Joseph to assume the burden of maintaining the house- 
hold by his handicraft. 

That " there was in him all that was most manly, and 
all that was most womanly, the strength and wisdom and 
authority of manhood, with the tact and delicacy and 
intuitive discernment of womanhood," * was due, doubtless, 
in part to the human hand of a revered mother, as well as 
to the divine-human instinct of his own unique character. 
And it is the glory of humanity that Jesus came as the 
Divine Incarnation, born of a woman, born under the law. 

* Henry M. Goodwin, D.D. 

90 



CHAPTER THREE. 

The Boyhood of Jestas. 

fF the medley of squalid homes for the poor, that con- 
stitutes the most notable feature of the Galilean vil- 
lages of to-day, does not picture to us the Nazareth 
which Jesus saw, yet he must have found there the 
chattering, jangling vegetable dealers and merchantmen 
or workmen at their trades, all in the roadway opposite their 
open shops or stalls, and the obtuse donkeys and patient 
camels, the chickens and the children, — the streets full of 
motley crowds, — just as to-day. 

The population was then four or five times as large as 
now; Doctor Selah Merrill, our foremost authority, estimat- 
ing it from fifteen to twenty thousand. It was indeed a 
small city rather than a large village. Three commercial 
or military roads brought strangers through the town, or 
at the foot of the hill ; or they passed not far behind the 
town. The caravans of Midian, or from Damascus, or 
Egypt, and the great religious pilgrimages, and the Roman 
legions, and the retinues of foreign princes, were moving 
hither and thither within sight of the Saviour in his boy- 
hood. 

In going up to Jerusalem at twelve years old, there was 

[Book L] 91 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

first a sharp ascent over a stony path, then a descent of a 
thousand feet through narrow passes to the plain of Esdra- 
elon. All the way southward, past green Tabor and the 
lesser Hermon, clambering along the white limestone hills, 
or passing between cactus hedges that guarded patches of 
arable ground, pausing under a palm tree or sycamore, or 
gathering daisies or dandelions, amid the sage, mignonette, 
or thistles and brambles, up journeyed the lad with his 
questions for the rabbis at Jerusalem. Bright eyed chil- 
dren, with the joy of the hills in their faces, went with 
him, and with him they sang the pilgrim songs. 

It was the first journey he had made, when old enough 
to take notice. He saw the city of the Great King, and the 
pilgrims ; the Greeks too, and the Romans, the wild men 
of the desert, and travelers from the East arid from the 
Nile. And here he heard discussions upon the national 
theology. He had already thought of those questions 
which the rabbis debated, and he was drawn at once to the 
aged men as they sat asking and answering questions ; 
acutely listening and aptly asking, but not yet himself 
teaching with authority above that of the scribes. In 
childlike simplicity he presented to the most learned men 
of his nation those problems he had been weighing in his 
obscure home among the hills. He who was so sharp in 
questioning and answering with the doctors in later life 
had no small skill at it now. If childhood is always asking 
questions, the inquiries of Jesus were not unlikely followed 
up with method and purpose, like the simple and effective 
questioning of Socrates. 

92 



THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. 

These dry doctors, however, mindful of their own fame, 
forgot the Wonderful Child, when this religious prodigy 
was again 'concealed under the brow of the high hill at 
Nazareth. * 

IT was said by Irenaeus that Jesus sanctified childhood by 
passing through it ; and by Bonaventura that we are to 
become little with the " Little One," that we may increase 
in stature with him. It is strange indeed that the God- 
man increased in wisdom, that there was a time when he 

* " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house? " Jesus won- 
dered that Joseph and Mary did not seek for him first of all in the temple. 
Did they not already know his passion for learning of spiritual things, 
and his interest in the ritual of worship? That Joseph and Mary should 
have rested in comparative ease during a day's journey, before they sought 
•for him, shows that they were in the habit of trusting the lad out of sight. 
He had shown proof that he could care for himself. It shows also that 
Jesus was companionable at that age, and found often with other chil- 
dren. He knew the childhood plays in the market towns. 

Dr. Tristram suggests that Joseph thought that Jesus had gone with 
the women and children, who usually traveled an hour or two in advance ; 
and that Mary supposed him to be with the men of the company, coming 
an hour or two later. 

At twelve, Jesus had become a " Son of the Law " ; and at the syn- 
agogue phylactaries had been put upon him as a mature person. It was 
at this period that the journey to Jerusalem was made, wherein he 
gathered food for long meditation in first meeting the sages of his people. 
And though he w T as probably not yet fully conscious just who he himself 
was, his relation to his heavenly Father seemed henceforth the nearer and 
dearer. It is Luke alone who relates this story of the child in the temple, 
and he alone who emphasizes the fact that he was ' ' subject to his par- 
ents." 

Nota Bene. — The visit of Jesus as a lad at the temple is the topic of a 
valuable Article by Bishop Hendrix in Chapter 1, of Book xi. 

93 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

was less wise than afterwards, that his wisdom developed 
as he grew in stature ; and that he increased in favor with 
God, that the divine manifestation — the out-gleaming of 
the Light of the World in these boyhood days — was less at 
first than afterwards. The nature of Christ was developed 
in a manner not unlike that which characterizes human- 
ity.* It seems likely that the Divine Personality, the In- 
dwelling Godhead, was manifested in him, in a manner 
analogous to the action of the Holy Spirit upon human 
nature now, and that the human powers of Jesus responded 
perfectly to the Divine ; it being, in effect, much as if the 
Holy Spirit without measure were acting upon human 
powers, and the human were in perfect accord with the 
divine monitions. 

The perfection of his human nature is illustrated by his 
coming a little at a time, into a knowledge which he did 
not have before. Amid common grieving and rejoicing, 
sleeping and waking, he advanced from wisdom to wis- 
dom, and from grace to grace. His advance, however, was 
not from folly, not from wrong ideas, not from graceless- 
ness. 

His mental development was powerfully aided by the 
right determination of his character : his spiritual life 
favored his perception of the truth ; and his apprehension 
of what was true, was so related to the executive part of 



* " He had only the same means as the rest of us, of becoming con- 
scious of his relationship to God. For if this were not so he is no ex- 
ample to us, he was not tempted like as we are." — Thomas Hughes. 

94 



THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. 

his nature, that he willed to act according to the truth he 
saw. So he came into possession of wisdom, if not of 
book or rabbinical learning. He tested the doctors when 
he was twelve years old, and concluded not to add to the 
elementary instruction of the synagogue, any longer term 
of sitting at the feet of the scribes and Pharisees.* 

IT is clear enough, however, that he learned from Moses, if 
not from those who sat in Moses' seat. The law was 
taught to Jewish children so early that they began to re- 
peat it, at five years old. The poorest of the people had 
portions of Holy Writ. Jesus must have seen all the rolls 
of the Law and the Prophets in the synagogue, or in the 
houses of the wealthy, when he was a child. The Son of 
David must have studied well the ancestral Psalter. The 
sacred songs of his people, the old proverbs, and the 
Hebrew history were conned by him who spake as never 
man spake. The warmth and illustrative power of the 
inspired preachers of old, the seers and prophets of the 
earlier dispensation, were caught by him. As a youth he 
came into sympathy with the stalwart saints who had 
made venerable his native country, — the heroes and patri- 
archs, poets and kings. 



* Jerusalem was the city of fashion, of wealth, of luxury, of culture. 
The relatively illiterate people of the towns were held in contempt. The 
Hebrew pronunciation of the Galileans subjected them to ridicule. 
" Perish the sanctuary," cried the educational zealots, " but let the chil- 
dren go to school ; " " the breath of the children who attend school is the 
strongest safeguard of society." 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

It was written of the law, — " thou shalt meditate therein 
day and night." In these days of his youth and early 
manhood, Jesus reflected upon the principles underlying 
the sacred text. He knew that anger was murder (Matt, v : 
21, 22) ; that sin consisted in a wicked look (Matt, v : 27-29) ; 
that the spirit of the third commandment comprehended 
more than its letter (Matt, v : 33-37) ; and he threw light 
upon what the Sabbath was for, by citing the usage of 
David (Mark xi : 15-19). He liberalized the national mind as 
to retaliation, and the forgiveness of injuries (Matt, v : 
38, 39, Matt, v : 43-45) ; he so sharply discerned the mean- 
ing of Moses, that he could set the Pharisees ' to rights as 
to divorce (Matt, xix : 3-9) ■ he could silence the Sadducees 
by ancient texts (Matt, xxii : 23-33) ; and by ancient texts 
win the approval of the national conscience in twice cleans- 
ing the temple (Mark xi : 15-19, John ii : 16). To the 
rabbi Nicodemus (John iii : 10), he explained the meaning 
of Ezek. xxxvi : 26, 27, and Jer. xxxi : 33. It was his life 
mission to expound the spirituality of the law, which the 
scribes and Pharisees had missed (Matt, v : 17-20, Rom. x : 4), 
and to fulfill it : and to become the Lawgiver of new ages. 

These. points indicate plainly that from a child he knew 
the Holy Scriptures. 

WE know, too, that the Holy Child had an exquisite sense 
of color, as he considered the lily in royal array; or with 
unfeigned humility he considered the worm, which symbol- 
ized the poverty of spirit of him who was the reproach of 

96 



THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. 

men and the despised of the people. The white and moss 
rock-roses, and the pink phlox, so abundant near Nazareth, 
often greeted him in his walks along the lonely glens or 
upon the hilltops. The wildest panorama in all Palestine, un- 
surpassed even by Mount Tabor, is seen from the top of the 
eminence upon whose slope the city is built. Snow-crowned 
Hermon is a score of miles distant upon the north ; and the 
dome of Tabor, with its sturdy oaks, is upon the southeast ; 
in the south and southwest, is the plain of Esdraelon ; in 
the west is the long ridge of Carmel,— and, twenty miles 
away, the blue sea ; and in the foreground are the rough 
backs and precipitous ledges of the hills which surround 
the vale of Nazareth, and five hundred feet below is the 
city itself. Clambering the rough hillsides or walking here 
and there amid growths so familiar, the sage, the nettles, 
the horehound, appeared the Holy Child in his boyhood, as 
he studied with the psalmists and prophets of his people 
the out-of-door revelation. 

NOR can we rid ourselves of the notion that amid walnuts 
and maples, the tamarisk, the acacia, the ash, the juni- 
per and pine, the Son of Mary must often have thought 
of his higher kinship and his Father's house. The sumac, 
the ivy, and the hawthorn must have seen him, when, for 
the hour, he forgot the Nazarenes, and would fain repose 
upon the bosom of Jehovah. 

He was no Pharisee to pray upon the street corners, but 
in the morning, rising up a great while before day, or upon 
the approach of evening, when the holy mountains were 

97 7 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

casting lengthening shadows across the vales or table-lands, 
and the shepherd boys were bringing in their flocks, and 
the vineyards and fields were sending home their laborers, 
then Jesus went forth into some solitary place to commune 
with Him who seeth in secret. He who loved Olivet began 
by loving the hill behind Nazareth. The gloom and the 
glory of the nights of Palestine were well known to him ; 
whether the black tempest was seen rising from the Medi- 
terranean, or the constellations were clear. 

The low mountains upon an inland sea were less damp 
at night than the elevations of our Atlantic seaboard, and 
warmer than the dry hills of our high altitudes, so that the 
conditions were favorable for entering into the closet of 
the night when the door of the day was shut. And in the 
silent and solitary watch, the light of heaven shone upon 
him who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and 
supplications, with strong crying and tears. 

He who thought it needful to abide forty days in the 
desert at the beginning of his public ministry, early abode 
certain days and nights removed from society and the home 
circle. Nor was this strange, when we consider that he 
had already made such an amazing remove from heights 
above, coming to this lonely and savage outpost of creation, 
where the most loving friend could scarce remind him of 
the society of heaven. When Jesus came at last to be 
conscious who he was, was there no homesick feeling ever 
rising in the heart of the God-man, as he wandered about 
by night on the Nazarene hills often gazing heavenward ? 

The habit of spiritual communion was well fixed, long 

98 



THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. 

before he prayed in the holy hour of baptism, and long 
before the fashion of his countenance was altered as he 
prayed in the hour of transfiguration, and long before he 
stood at the silent tomb of a friend, testifying, "I know 
that that Thou hearest me always." It was in early life 
that his perfect moral nature so coincided with the Divine 
Mind, that he knew the perfect use of prayer, — dwelling in 
the secret place of the Most High, and abiding under the 
shadow of the Almighty. 



30ME morning, when returning to his lowly home, there 
must have dawned upon him that idea which is ex- 
pressed in Rev. xxii : 16, that he himself was the bright, the 
Morning Star. Dawn it did, upon some happy morning, the 
thought that he himself, at the carpenter's bench, was the 
Messiah, — the theme of hope and prophecy for four thou- 
sand years. It was the study of the Messianic texts, to- 
gether with meditation and prayer, that led him to this 
conclusion. And his mind was mainly led to it, by the 
unfolding of his Divine Nature, as he increased in wisdom 
and stature and waxed .strong in spirit ; this Divine Life 
acting upon his personality in a manner analogous to the 
manner in which the Holy Spirit acts upon the human soul, 
or as the Holy Spirit would act upon a character already 
morally perfect. The grace of God was upon him, and in 
him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily ; and he 
was calm and content, as if he had no great work to do. 



BOOK TWO. 



•-»£****- 



Otir Brother in Toil. 

•**$&+*■ 

Chapter 1. Page 101. 

A Master at the Work=Bench 



Chapter 2. Tage 115. 

His Work Without Flaw. 



Chapter 3. Page 125. 

Trie Nazarene Neighbors. 



Chapter 4. Page 132. 

Mystery of trie Wilderness. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

A Master at ttie Work=Bench 

^Sv 




HETHER the Messianic idea dawned upon the 
Saviour of men early or late, there appeared 
no smack of boyish self-conceit, nor lack of 
youthful modesty, nor impropriety of manly action, nor 
lack of such dignity as might befit the extraordinary claims 
he was about to make for himself. 

It is much, in view of the problems of the present cen- 
tury, to know that the singular balance and proportion of 
character attained by Jesus Christ, — which call upon all 
unbelief to " come and see " whether any good thing can 
come out of Nazareth, — was wrought out, in its rudiments, 
in the life of a common laborer. 

If he watched the coming of the crocus and the mallows, 
if he observed the water-cress, and the shaking reeds of the 
brook ; if he wandered among the gardens, — the gourds and 
the pumpkins of Palestine ; if he noted the almond tree and 
the lime, the date palm and pistachio ; — yet was this man no 
dreamer, no aimless wanderer in the night watches, and no 

[Book II.] 201 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

predestined rhetorician to paint the aspects of nature. He 
handled rather the level, the plummet, the square. 

Allowing for the moment the claims he made for him- 
self, and that the ages have made for him, it would have 
been extraordinary if he — in whom all prophecy was ful- 
filled and to whom was applicable every name of the Holy 
One of God which was revealed in Old Testament song or 
story — had appeared in any other guise than that of a day- 
laborer. Had he contravened the average lot of the race, 
he would have been no Son of Man. Jesus would have 
been but an alien if in the commonwealth of Israel he had 
failed to learn a trade : manual work being so honored 
among God's ancient people, that every rabbi could earn 
his living by labor ; and it was a Jewish proverb that " he 
trains his son to be a thief " who teaches him no regular 
trade. "The tradesman at his work," said the Talmud, 
" need not rise before the greatest doctor ;" and " the most 
ordinary laborer, who is of the seed of Abraham, is the peer 
of kings." And it was told in old tradition that when 
David thought himself perfect, Nathan reminded him that 
he had no handicraft : the king therefore learned to handle 
the tools of an armorer. 

Jesus, as the Son of David, disciplined his eye, and 
skilled his fingers in handicraft ; glorifying the work-bench, 
and hallowing the implements of toil. He, in his highest 
nature, did this, to identify himself with the race he sought 
to benefit, much as the Russian Czar served his people best 
by plying the tools of a ship-carpenter. It is notable that 
the painters in recent years have been attracted by this 

102 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

artisan story, finding Jesus in sympathy with the toilers of 
to-day. Through him the dignity of labor is seen, in its 
true relation to the grandeur of human life and destiny. 

The oriental carpenter, in the time of Jesus, was some- 
times a wagon smith, or he made plows and yokes. 
Shelves, cupboards, chests, or wooden ware for the house- 
holder, and carved work came from the carpenters shop. 
Sometimes, too, he wrought in metals. The old paintings 
depict Jesus as a child playing with shavings in the shop ; 
and Jesus and Joseph are sometimes seen on the ancient 
canvas building boats, or making fences. * 

From his after skill in dovetailing argument and illus- 
tration with subtle doctors or the carping multitude, he 
must have early gained rare skill in joining things together 
in workmanlike shape ; and his sharpness in dealing with 
lawyer, and scribe, and Pharisee, betokened early aptitude 
in handling edge-tools. Plato, who would exclude bad 
workmen from an ideal republic, lest they exert an evil 
influence upon youth, would have spoken of Jesus as exert- 
ing a salutary influence, like a breeze bringing health, f 

With hard hands, toughened by toil, Jesus was ready to 
take his turn upon the Sabbath day in handling the roll of 



* The stone mason did most of the house building in Nazareth. The 
carpenter shop in the time of our Lord was of arched stone, or it was a 
cave cut out of the limestone hillside. The mechanics were usually seated 
at their work, — there being no work-bench in the modern sense. 

fit is impossible to think of him as doing his work so ill that it 
needed to be done over again ; or of being a mechanic unmanly in his 
private and social habits. 

103 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the law in the synagogue, and as ready to expound Moses 
and the prophets as to vie with the artisans of his age, who 
decorated the house of God with vines of gold, or added 
luxuriant features to the splendor of oriental architecture. 

No trait of Jesus' character was more marked than the 
prudence begotten by his sober and well balanced life as a 
craftsman. He was one apt to count the cost before build- 
ing. It is likely that his competency and faithfulness were 
in such demand that he earned good wages, and provided 
for his own house, and laid up money against the time 
when he should lead a life of wayfaring. * 

If, indeed, the question is raised what Jesus was doing 
in thirty years before his public ministry began, it is to be 
answered, that he was manufacturing a character to take 
out into the world with him ; he built up that which was 
nobler than all the famous buildings of Athens, he made 
Nazareth more memorable than Rome. 



OATLENCE was a strong element of his character. The 
^C hand which plied the tools might have been laid on 
the eyes of the blind. His voice, expended in kindly 
speech to his mother, might have been calling the dead to 
life, or silencing the winds upon the mountains. And only 
five miles from Nazareth was Nain, where many widows 
buried their sons, and were inconsolable. Jesus learned 
first of all the lesson of patient waiting, — abiding his time. 

* This is implied in the story, as to the first part of it. The record 
in Luke viii : 1-6 refers to the second preaching tour. 

104 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

He who was conscious of the highest kind of power, was 
content for the time with his trade ; and this while he had 
a nature so enthusiastic that when he had once entered 
upon his great work he was said to be " beside himself." 
His ability to curb his mighty forces during all these early 
years has led one to say that " Christ's greatest miracles 
were wrought within himself."* That calmness which 
characterized him afterwards was learned in the carpenter 
shop, where he gained the invaluable discipline of doing a 
regular day's work — year in and year out ; and he was 
patient in toil, which one would think might have easily 
seemed irksome. Did the Son of Man, coming to the earth, 
need to make fences and plows for years ? 

He who was designing to make himself the central 
figure of the world, drawing the love and service and 
worship of all men, and giving laws to all, was self- 
possessed, and content with the simplicity of his life. He 
who was to be so energetic in public life was not apathetic 
but calm, with a certain orderliness of living : " There are 
twelve hours in the day ;" "My time is not yet come." 
This deliberation, this determination not to be hurried, is 
characteristic ; and it is closely connected with the grand 
schooling of the work-bench, and persistent attention to 
the duty of the hour, and present faithfulness. 

Another characteristic of Jesus was his Humility. He 
who made himself of no reputation — by renouncing for the 
hour his heavenly reputation — was unmindful of the petty 

* Henry Ward Beecher. 

105 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

triumphs of the ambitious youth of a Galilean village ; and 
he was content with such inconveniences as pertained to 
his earthly condition. This was not bred of any craven 
spirit ; but was due to his perception of the true proportion 
of life in its relation to things unseen and time unending, 
which gave him a certain regal bearing and courage to 
contrast with his lowliness. 

He who said that men must become as little children in 
order to enter the kingdom of God, kept within himself a 
little child's heart, docile, simple, straightforward, artless. 
When he was laying the deep foundations of the kingdom 
of love, "he came," says Dean Farrar, " to teach, that con- 
tinual excitement, prominent action, distinguished services, 
brilliant success, are no essential elements of true and noble 
life ; and that myriads of the beloved of God are to be 
found among the insignificant and the obscure." This is a 
lesson worth making fences for, — dignifying the common 
employments of men. 

Another characteristic of our Lord was his Sympathy 
with the Poor. He who was to learn what hunger is, and 
who was to be without a place to lay his head, needed to 
exercise no condescension in visiting the poor.* He held 

*He who promised to his disciples heavenly mansions, now moved 
about among hovels unclean as well as uncomfortable. Where there 
was no limestone, the house-walls were of mud, with a roof of poles and 
a thatching of reeds and layers of earth. There was only one room. At 
their meals the poorer people sat on the floor, the ground bare and hard ; 
having to eat, a thin sheet of barley bread baked in a neighborhood oven, 
figs, olives, and dates, and perhaps fish cooked in oil. There were no 
windows, unless two or three little openings, seven inches by nine ; and 

106 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

no earthly rank, and there were none to be classed below 
him in condition. He was surrounded by men of simple 
life, with few wants, and much leisure for rude speech and 
the invention of uncouth interpretations of Scripture. The 
Son of Man came to be known as the friend of the poor, 
when as a class they were friendless. 

Another element in the character of Jesus was that 
Sociability which must have been manifested in early life, — 
making him a good neighbor in Nazareth. A certain deli- 
cacy, refinement, gentleness, and geniality made him a 
welcome guest, even in a house where the master was out 
of sympathy with the spirit of Jesus. Yet there was no 
levity in his vivacity. Capable of forming intimate friend- 
ships, he could be both social and solitary ; leaning hard 
upon human helpers, and much alone with God. In an age 
of religious ascetics, he never disdained the solaces of 
mortality ; and when banqueting with the opulent he had 
no scruples in diet. He did not teach abstinence, but 
virtue ; he did not reprove enjoyment, but vice. He prac- 
ticed self-denial, yet never tortured his body by needless 
austerity. 

Then, too, a certain Serenity of spirit, tranquillity amid 
the rage of his enemies, was well settled as a characteristic 
in those years when his life was like sunshine in the house 
of Mary. His seriousness never degenerated into melan- 
choly. He was sorrowful yet always rejoicing. The man 

the door was four feet high. There was sometimes a seat extending round 
the interior, which was used for the bed, — each sleeper with a rug. 

107 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

who perhaps hardly ever smiled, declared a joyous, gleeful 
child to be the image of the kingdom of heaven. The sad 
man died bequeathing joy to his disciples, — "that they 
might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." 

Nor can one even glance at the Gospel story, without 
discerning in Jesus qualities that make for Leadership. His 
calmness as well consisted with thunder peal and light- 
ning stroke, as the blue of heaven with cloud and tempest. 
He who was as sensitive as a woman was as bold, aggres- 
sive, and fearless, as a warrior. His sobriety was balanced 
by enthusiasm. Dignified, sincere, benignant, just, right- 
eous, and true, he pursued life's pathway in one unalterable 
course, — breaking men off from antique notions, and or- 
ganizing the world anew. With caution and firmness, and 
with faith in God, he bearded the ecclesiastics who mis- 
represented the religion of his people.* 

His executive qualities were aided by his Knowledge of 
Men, first acquired at Nazareth. The townsmen had little 
idea of what eyes were peering out upon them from that 
carpenter's shop. His acquaintance with human nature 
astonished his disciples. "He knew all men, and needed 
not that any should testify of men ; for he knew what was 
in man." Year by year he attended the feasts at Jerusalem, 
undazed by the pretensions of the reputed sages of his peo- 

*" Jesus Christ was, in some respects, the most bold, energetic, and 
courageous man that ever lived ; but in others he was the most flexible, 
submissive, and yielding:" the one course pertaining to his Father's 
business, the other to his own personal welfare. 

— Jacob Abbott. 

108 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

pie. He was a discerner of motives, the intents of the 
heart. With penetrating insight, he could read the hearts 
of covetous or vacillating inquirers, of impulsive disciples, 
of wondering crowds ; nor was he angered at men's misap- 
prehension of his own life and work, — unless at such mo- 
ments as called for righteous indignation against crafty 
and hypocritical foes, who were destroying Israel. 

As a Patriot he mourned over the doom of Jerusalem, 
as if the predestined fall of a sparrow, noted by infinite 
love. He was a pattern of civil obedience, and veneration 
for authority ; being mindful of the claims of Caesar — 
sharply separating between State and Church — and par- . 
taking of no political fears under the eagles of Eome. His 
life he devoted to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

To be Spiritually Helpful to others was the passion of his 
life ; his friendly and affectionate instruction by day being 
supplemented by solemn hours of prayer in the night. 



THE elements which go to make up the full Proportion 
of our Saviour's Character cannot be referred to with- 
out detailing his whole life ; it would be needful to go over 
the story step by step, to observe him as a child at home, as 
a youth, as a laboring man, when met by temptation, when 
healing the multitude, in his career of self-sacrifice, in his 
qualities as a teacher, preacher, pastor, in his sufferings 
and death, — at every turn, whenever, wherever we see 
him, we discern qualities that lead us to speak of him 
as perfect in the symmetry and equipoise of his charac- 

109 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ter. And this character, in its majestic and matchless 
fullness, was formed when Jesus was working as a com- 
mon carpenter, — his three years' ministry being but the 
development of powers already existent and ready for 
service. 

How new it all was to the world, appears in the remark 
of an eminent art critic, that ancient art knew no lines of 
suffering or of pity aside from the face of Jesus. * In him we 
find both resolution and resignation. He was courageous, 
and he had fortitude to bear. There was in him no distor- 
tion. We often say of one that he was a legalist, — not so 
Jesus ; or a recluse, — not so the Nazarene Carpenter. He 
was not an extremist : neither an abnormal pietist, nor an 
austere man. " We cannot," says Philip Schaff, " properly 
attribute to him any one temperament : he was neither 
sanguine like Peter, nor choleric like Paul, nor melancholy 
like John, nor phlegmatic as James is sometimes repre- 
sented." 

" The symmetry, grace, and ease " of the character of 
Jesus, says Conder, in his Basis of Faith, \ "conceal from 
us its colossal proportions. Saints, heroes, sages, the lights 
of human history, occupy their separate departments of 
greatness. None of them is great all round. We are not 
surprised to find the loftiest wisdom unsympathetic, and 
impatient of conceited ignorance : the most spotless purity, 
cold and ascetic ; the most ardent love, partial and jeal- 

*The Rev. F. H. Allen. 
f Page 367 ; compare p. 359. London, 1877. 

110 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

ous ; the most tender-hearted benevolence deficient in 
righteous indignation, the purest zeal in tolerance, the 
deepest humility in nobleness. But in Jesus we can find no 
exaggeration, no deficiency." 

So perfect was the combined strength and purity and 
moral beauty of the life of Jesus, that we are wont to 
believe him to have had every attribute we would desire to 
see in a friend. This is based on the Scripture representa- 
tions concerning him. His life was steadfast as the sun, 
and as well proportioned ; a round orb, shining with 
even strength. The more we know of him, the more we 
behold the perfection of his character. And like the sun, 
his perfection is manifested to all beholders. ''He is tran- 
scendently beautiful and glorious to the rudest aspirant 
after goodness, and no less so to a Fenelon, a Martyn, an 
Oberlin, a Judson ; the ignorant woman who can hardly 
spell out his story in her Bible can imagine no other being 
so lovely, so adorable, — and he seems no less the highest 
type of humanity to Milton, Newton, Locke, Bunsen, Fara- 
day." * 

In seeking phrases to depict the lights and shades of 
spiritual beauty in the character of the Son of Man, I cite 
two sentences : — 



*Prof. A. P. Peabody, of Harvard College. 

The testimony of President Mark Hopkins is so phrased as to bring to 
us again the image of the sun : "Take away, if you will, the vital 
element of the air, disrobe the sun of its beams, but remove not from me 
this life of my life ; leave to me the full-orbed and unshorn brightness of 
the character of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness." 

Ill 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" Once in human history, we meet a being who never did 
an injury, and never resented one done to him, never 
uttered an untruth, never practiced a deception, and never 
lost an opportunity of doing good ; generous in the midst of 
the selfish, upright in the midst of the dishonest, pure in 
the midst of the sensual, and wise far above the wisest of 
earth's sages and prophets ; loving and gentle, yet immov- 
ably resolute, and whose illimitable meekness and patience 
never once forsook him in a vexatious, ungrateful, and 
cruel world."* "We behold him in every conceivable 
variety of position, mingling with all sorts of persons, and 
with all kinds- of events ; we follow the steps of his public 
life, and we watch his most unsuspecting and retired mo- 
ments ; we see him in the midst of thousands, or with his 
disciples, or with a single individual ; we see him in the 
capital of his country, or in one of its remote villages, in 
the temple and the synagogue, or in the desert or in the 
streets ; we see him with the rich and with the poor, the 
prosperous and the afflicted, the good and the bad, with his 
private friends, and with his enemies and murderers ; and 
we behold him at last in circumstances the most over- 
whelming which it is possible to conceive, deserted, be- 
trayed, falsely accused, unrighteously condemned, nailed 
to a cross : but wherever he is and however placed, in the 
ordinary circumstances of his daily life, or at the last 
supper, or in Gethsemane, or in the judgment hall, or on 



* John Young, LL.D. 

112 



THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. 

Calvary, he is the same meek, pure, wise, Godlike Be- 
ing.''* 

So perfect was the equilibrium of his powers, that he 
was a model in conduct: "A model," says Dr. Albert 
Barnes, "for kings and princes, sages and philosophers, the 
humble, the unlearned, the lowly, the down-trodden : in 
prosperity and in adversity, in joy and in sorrow ; in benev- 
olence, in purity, in gentleness, in the love of truth, in the 
love of justice ; in childhood, in youth, and in middle age ; 
under obloquy and reproach ; in dealing with crafty and 
unprincipled men ; in abandonment and persecution ; in the 
severest form of death, and under all that could shake the 
firmness of virtue : — where has there been such a character, 
except in the person of Jesus Christ ? " 

It is this absence of anything like one-sidedness in the 
character of Jesus, that has led James Martineau to say : 
"To have neither restlessness nor apathy, — but to pass 
freely between energy and repose, at the call to act or the 
need to suffer ; to bind wounds, without indulgence to the 
sins of men ; to have no tears, but those of pity ; to utter no 
reproach, but as the true interpreter of conscience ; to send 
forth no cry, that does not soften into, prayer ; to mingle 
with the beauty of the world, yet find it but the symbol of 
a more transcendent glory ; — only brings us somewhat 
nearer to that marvelous life, in which the contradictions 
of thought and the conflicts of feeling formed the very har- 
mony of a nature lifted into perfect peace." 

* Compare Young's Christ of History, p. 227. 

113 8 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

So far as may be observed in his recorded action, Jesus 
was without imperfection in the attributes of his character. 
So nearly does he represent an ideal character, that Mr. J. 
Stuart Mill has made the approval of Jesus the rule of 
virtue, even for unbelievers.* 

' ' Jesus is the ideal of virtue," said Coquerel ; "so per- 
fect that all the efforts of the most delicate conscience, the 
most fertile imagination, the most expansive charity, can- 
not add to it the least trait." 



* ' ' Nor, even now, would it be easy for an unbeliever to find a better 
translation of the rule of virtue, from the abstract unto the concrete, than 
the endeavor so to live that Christ would approve his life." 




114 



CHAPTER TWO. 

His Work Without Flaw. 

(^ I HE well-rounded orb of the character of Jesus was 
4 I surrounded by the halo of a Sinless Life. So perfect 
~JL was his life, that, amid a world full of evil men, 
Jesus was like a lily in purity. Amid the perverse children 
of a crooked generation, he had none of the faults common 
to childhood. And as a man, he never confessed guilt or 
made a profession of repentance. Contrast his course in this 
respect, with all the saints in the Old Testament and the 
New. "I have need to be baptized of thee," said John by 
the river side, when he saw the Lamb of God, without 
blemish and without spot. This was said concerning the 
former character of Jesus as a holy man, already known to 
John, and before the Holy Dove descended to mark the 
Messiah. Belonging, as Jesus did, to a race perpetually 
repenting and making new resolutions, he boldly challenged 
the world, "Which of you convinceth me of sin ?" Jesus 
claimed that he always did those things which are pleasing 
to the Father. 

Did sin never break in, to make these pretensions 
absurd ? Did he never sin in some small degree, violating 

[Book n.] 115 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the holy law in one point, so being guilty of all ? What 
man of our race has been known to sin in so slight a meas- 
ure that none have discovered it ? * Had Jesus been guilty 
of sin, been' a sinner by habit or been once betrayed into it, 
would not the enemies of Christ, searching through all 
these centuries, have been able to find it out ? And yet 
to-day no voice is raised save against such faults as his 
cursing a barren fig tree, or denouncing hypocrites, or 
cleansing the den of thieves that denied the temple of God. 
But had he never taught his disciples the sin of profession 
without possession by cursing that pretentious fig tree, the 
enemies of Christ would be now saying that his teachings 
lacked emphasis, and that he gave no stern rebuke to 
hypocrites. And if he had never denounced the Pharisees, 
it would have been said that his character was imperfect, 
in that he had no holy wrath against such sins as theirs. 
If he could have lived by the side of such people, and never 
denounced them, he would have been imperfect. Ye that 
love the Lord, hate evil, f And if he had failed to scourge 
the unclean beasts from the courts of God's house, and to 
drive out the money changers by his severe look of author- 



*" While Moses, the meekest man, sinned in anger; and Abraham, 
the father of the faithful, in unfaithfulness ; and Peter, the fearless, in 
cowardice ; and John, the apostle of love, in vindictiveness, — Jesus alone 
never sinned." — Bishop Perowne, D.D. 

f It is not recorded that Jesus was angry when the Nazarene mob 
sought to kill him, or the Jews to stone him, or when he was falsely 
accused at his trial ; his righteous indignation was justly aroused by hypo- 
critical ecclesiastics, who were morally unclean. 

116 



WORK WITHOUT FLAW. 

ity, it would be said that he had no courage and no leader- 
ship such as would have been becoming in the Messiah. 

His enemies when he was alive had every chance to 
know him ; but both Pilate and Judas declared him inno- 
cent,* and they who stood taunting at the cross could only 
say : " He trusted in God ;" " He saved others. "f Said the 
Messiah, — They hated me without a cause. No malignity 
could find stains of sin upon him. And those who best 
knew him, who leaned upon his bosom or learned the full 
story of his life from his intimates, declared that in him 
was no sin, that he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
from sinners, who as our high priest needed not to offer up 
sacrifice for his own sins. J 

Yet this sinless being, of infinite purity, expressed deep 
sympathy for those overborne by storms of passion ; indig- 
nant at wrong, he was patient with the wrongdoers ; in- 



* How gladly would Judas have comforted himself in his anguish, if 
he had betrayed guilty blood. 

f " For three long years, the Pharisees were watching their victim, — 
mingling in every crowd, hiding behind every tree ; they examined his 
disciples, cross-questioned all around him ; they looked into his ministerial 
life, his domestic privacy, his hours of retirement : and they finally came 
forward with the sole accusation, that he had shown disrespect to the 
Roman governor ; and the Roman judge pronounced this accusation void. " 
— F. W. Robertson, Sermons, compare p. 685. New York, 1870. 

X The followers of Jesus believed him so supernaturally pure and holy, 
that they were ready to allow the claim he made for divine honors. He 
was to them the Just One, the Righteous, the Holy One ; neither was any 
guile found in his mouth. " He who sees him," says Oosterzee, " has 
seen the Father, since no troubled sea can thus clearly reflect the image of 
the sun of the firmament." 

117 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

tensely abhorring iniquity, he was moved by a profound 
pity for those trained to sin from early childhood ; nor was 
his sanctity ever divorced from practical benevolence, out- 
pouring a divine affection for the offspring of human 
wretchedness. 

It is this personal love, bestowed alike upon the good 
and the victims of evil, that has evoked the strongest kind 
of testimony to the sinlessness of Jesus, — as if he were 
the moral ideal of the race. Modern unbelief has sharply 
distinguished between Christ and Christianity. The objec- 
tions are never against him ; his character is always com- 
mended. It is those who have imperfectly followed the 
Saviour, who have been attacked by unbelief. Even when 
their opposition has grown out of a practical dislike to the 
moral ideal set forth in Christ's life, the consciences of 
men have commended his life ; commended that which 
their evil passions have kept them from following.* So 
severely did Jesus spiritualize the moral law, and so rigidly 
did he set forth a life of self-sacrifice for others as the ideal, 
and so thoroughly did he enforce these teachings by his 
example, that the world stands condemned by his life. 

No prophet has seen in vision so holy a character as that 
of Jesus of Nazareth ; nor has any sage conceived of it. 
The great heathen philosophers declared that no one could 
lead a perfect life. And eighteen hundred years have not 



* As it is said that Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just 
man and holy ; so the worst men have always had a sense of moral separa- 
tion between themselves and Jesus. 

118 



WORK WITHOUT FLAW. 

furnished a disciple so holy as the Master ; whose life was 
pure as a sunbeam, though it shone in foul places. The 
appearance of this Sinless One upon the earth, makes that 
whole period in which he lived luminous with hope for 
man, in spite of the sinfulness that slew him. 

WITHOUT raising now the inquiry whether the Deity 
was manifested as an incarnation in Jesus of Naza- 
reth, it is to be stated as one of the points of perfection, that 
there was nothing derogatonj to the divine nature in the 
records of his life : this illustrates the proportion of his 
character. 

The consistency of his life, more perfect and beautiful 
even than his words, suggests nothing hypocritical or pre- 
tentious. There was indeed a magnanimity of spirit, and an 
indifference to neglect and to despite against his person, a 
meekness and majesty of bearing, and a looking forward 
into future ages, that comport well with the highest claims 
he put forth as to his real relation to the human race ; his 
even balance of character sustaining in every way what he 
said in regard to his own mission. He maintained with per- 
fect consistency the character of a personage as perfect as 
the Heavenly Father. 

Therefore it is, that he draws all men unto him. There 
is a natural gravitation of souls, says Archbishop Trench,* 
which attracts them to mighty personalities, — an instinct 
in man which tells him that he is never so great as when 

* Compare p. 155, Christ the Desire of all Nations. Philadelphia, 1854. 

119 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

looking up to one greater than himself ; that he is made for 
this looking upward, — to find a nobler than himself, and to 
rejoice and be ennobled in it : it is the natural basis on 
which the devotion of mankind to Christ is built by the 
Spirit. 

THE Jewish Messiah, however, was no Jew ; "he has no 
race mark." * He did not, in his character, set forth 
the typical attributes of any one nationality, although the 
artists of all ages have betrayed their own limitations by 
painting him as Jew, Greek, or barbarian. The galleries 
are full of Italian, German, Dutch, or French Christs. But 
Jesus was the Son of Man, standing for the race.f 

This fact shows, at the least, that his character was no 
myth made up by several Jews, each taking a turn at it, 
and writing independently. "The invention of it," said 
Rousseau, "would be more astonishing than the hero." 

* Hugh Miller Thompson. 

f "The Christian type of character, if it was constructed by human 
intellect, was constructed at the confluence of three races, the Jewish, the 
Greek, and the Roman, each of which had strong national peculiarities of 
its own. A single touch, a single taint of any one of those peculiarities, 
and the character would have been national, not universal : transient, not 
eternal : it might have been the highest character in history, but it would 
have been disqualified for being ideal. Supposing it to have been human, 
whether it were the effort of a real man to attain moral excellence, or a 
moral imagination of the writers of the Gospels, the chances, surely, were 
infinite against its escaping any tincture of the fanaticism, formalism, 
and exclusiveness of the Jew, of the political pride of the Roman, of the 
intellectual pride of the Greek. Yet it has entirely escaped them all." 

— Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. 

120 



WORK WITHOUT FLAW. 

The creation outright of such a character, as a literary- 
feat, would have made the fishermen of Gennesaret the 
intellectual leaders of the world. None but a Jesus, said 
Theodore Parker, could fabricate a Jesus.* 

A character so unique as that of Jesus cannot be ac- 
counted for upon the same grounds as those upon which 
we account for the upspringing of the world's great men : 
Jesus Christ is of another order, there is only one Christ. \ 

Looking at the Gospel story merely as literature, it is to 
be accounted for. The most rational theory, in accounting 
for it, is that it is true : the ideas underlying the character 
of Jesus had at that time no existence outside of himself. 

"If any man can believe," says Jenyn, "that, at a time 
when the literature of Greece and Rome, then in their 



*" It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not 
historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been 
superadded by the tradition of his followers. . . . Who among his 
disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings 
ascribed to .Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the 
Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly not Paul, 
whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different sort ; still 
less the early Christian writers. About the life and sayings of Jesus there is 
a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight, which 
must place the prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who 
have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of men of sublime 
genius of whom our species can boast." — John Stuart Mill. 

f Compare Principal C. A. Eow's Bampton Lectures, p. 97. London, 
1877. 

" The character of Jesus," says Dr. Chaining, "is wholly inexpli- 
cable on human principles." 

" The person of Christ is the miracle of history." — Philip Schaff, 
LL.D. 

121 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

meridian luster, were insufficient for the task, the son of 
a carpenter, with twelve of the humblest and most illiterate 
men, his associates, unassisted by any supernatural power, 
should be able to discover or invent a system of theology 
the most sublime, and of ethics the most perfect, which 
had escaped the penetration and learning of Plato, Aristotle, 
and Cicero ; and that from this system, by their own sa- 
gacity, they had excluded every false virtue, though uni- 
versally admired, and admitted every true virtue, though 
despised and ridiculed by all the rest of the world ; — if any 
one can believe that these men could become imposters, for 
no other purpose than the propagation of truth, villains for 
no end but to teach honesty, and martyrs, without the least 
prospect of honor or advantage ; or that if all this should 
have been possible, these few inconsiderable persons should 
have been able, in the course of a few years, to have 
spread this their religion over most parts of the then known 
world, in opposition to the interests, pleasures, ambition, 
prejudices, and even reason of mankind ; to have tri- 
umphed over the power of princes, the intrigues of states, 
the force of custom, the blindness of zeal, the influence of 
priests, the arguments of orators, and the philosophy of 
the world, without any supernatural assistance ; — if any 
one can believe all these miraculous events, contradictory 
to the experience of the powers and dispositions of human 
nature, he must be possessed of much more faith than is 
necessary to make him a Christian, and remain an unbe- 
liever from mere credulity." 



122 



WORK WITHOUT FLAW. 

NO moral theory or precept is so eloquent as this life, 
presenting as it does an ideal of character imitable in 
its human perfections, and inspiring a moral ambition 
to become complete in Christ Jesus. 

Bishop Colenso, in his Natal Sermons, makes the point, 
that since there are many relations in life which Jesus 
never sustained, and many circumstances in which he never 
was placed, the Imitation of Christ cannot be to copy his 
acts, but to imitate the spirit of the Master : — 

" We appeal to Christ's example as the perfect model, 
because we appeal to the spirit of his life ; to the principle 
which ruled it, to that conformity to the perfect will of 
God, the desire to please his Heavenly Father, the surren- 
der of his own will to God's will, which he manifested on 
all occasions. It is to the spirit of his life that we must 
appeal if we would 'put on Christ.' In the life of Christ, 
the leading idea is of one who lived wholly for others, to 
comfort and to heal ; to bring home to God the lost sheep, 
to awaken penitence in the sinner, and to assure the peni- 
tent of pardon and peace. And if the history in the Gospels 
is but a sketch, it is in a measure filled up by the lives of 
the members of the body of Christ in every age." * 

If we may not take the square and the level and the 
plummet, and imitate the Divine attributes of our Lord, we 

* Compare Vol. I., p. 317, Vol. II., p. 325. London, 1886. For 
these citations and many others, I am indebted to the references found in 
Whitmore's Testimonies of Nineteen Centuries to Jesus of Nazareth, Nor- 
wich, 1888. 

123 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

may at least hew to the line of the mind that was in 
Christ, so far as relates to his human characteristics,— 
and it would be heaven upon earth if all the sons of men 
would imitate the human attributes of our Lord. 

He who will make a good copy of a painting must keep 
his eye on the subject, else he will daub or rnake bad lines, 
and have to make the attempt over and over again. If the 
eyes do not turn away from Christ, but if we are always 
looking unto Jesus, we shall have the more success in 
becoming like him, — and we shall be satisfied when we 
awake in his likeness.* 

*N. B. — This whole topic of the Imitation of Christ is discussed at 
some length, in the Special Articles presented in Book XI., Chapters 
2, 3, 4 ; the different phases of the subject being presented by Bishop 
Vincent, President Capen, and Dr. IIorr. 




^ 



124 




CHAPTER THREE. 

His Nazarene Neighbors. 

-^f^r. 

HAT else was to be noted in Nazareth? The 
light of God shone upon those hills ; but the 
darkness comprehended it not. The sage old 
men gathered in the synagogue upon the Sabbath day and 
read the Messianic prophecies, and asked : Where is the 
promise of His coming ? When will He appear ? They 
never dreamed that a lad in their own congregation was to 
be the Saviour of the world. And the young men of the 
village were so uncouth and wicked, that it passed into a 
proverb, — Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
And it never occurred to them that the pious youth whom 
they jeered at as a juvenile saint, was He who should rule 
the world some day, and at last call all men before His 
Judgment seat. 

When the multitudes went thronging into the valley of 
the Jordan to be baptized of John, some of these wise old 
men, and young scapegraces, and that rough, hard-featured 
class which made up the middle life of Nazareth, went 

[Book II.] 125 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

down into the wilderness to see. Had Elijah returned ? 
Had Messiah come ? * 

The valley of the Jordan is a strangely twisted gorge 
from two to three thousand feet deep, ploughed like a ditch 
into the face of the country, its flat bottom being from six 
to twelve miles wide, almost desert and barren, save where 
the line of green thickets extending far up and down the 
valley marks the ordinary channel of the foaming waters. 
Wild beasts make their dens in these leafy coverts close by 
the stream ; and the voice of the lion is lifted up when he 
is roused from his lair by the Jordan in high flood. Wild 
men make this valley their home ; the tent of the Bedouin 
causing fear, as if he were fierce and untamable as the 
beasts of prey. 

Into this valley came crowding to John's Baptism all 
they of Jerusalem, and all the land of Judea, and all the 
region round about Jordan, proud Pharisee and unbeliev- 
ing, mocking Sadducee, scribe and rabbi, bloody soldier, 
and hard dealing publican, — a generation of vipers fleeing 

* The preaching of John stands like a preface to the Gospels, and we 
hastily pass over it to read the story beyond. He was but a voice : " Be- 
hold the Lamb of God." Had he stood by himself, as an Old Testament 
prophet, he would have been one of the greatest of them all ; but appear- 
ing as the morning star — burning and shining light — of the new dispen- 
sation, his light was quenched in the sunrise. Yet neither the naming 
Isaiah, nor Ezekiel with his mystery, nor Jeremiah with his tears, nor 
Elijah always standing before Jehovah, made so straight for the sinner's 
conscience as he whose words rang out through the whole country, empty- 
ing every house by his call. 

It was, says Edersheim, a Sabbatic year, A. U. C. 779, when the 
people were at leisure. 

126 



THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZARENE NEIGHBORS. 

from wrath to come ; and among the vipers came the old 
neighbors of Jesus, turbulent Nazarenes who had made 
their town infamous in all the nation. And they saw with 
their own eyes the Dove of God descending and resting on 
the Carpenter's Son, or they heard the strange story from 
those who saw it. But they could not believe eyes or ears. 
Yet somehow there floated back to the village on the hill- 
side rumors that Jesus the son of Joseph had been pro- 
claimed by John to be the Lamb of God, — whatever that 
might mean. And then they heard that their Carpenter 
was fashioning eyes and limbs for blind and halt down by 
the sea ; but they doubted him. 

When his journeyings (fifteen months after his baptism) 
took him again to Nazareth, as his custom was, he went 
into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to 
read ; and they gave him the book of the prophet Isaiah ; 
and he opened the book and found the Messianic prophecy, 
and read, — read with some strange emphasis, as if what he 
was reading was true : — 

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

Because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; 

He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, 

To preach deliverance to the captives, 

And recovering of sight to the blind, 

To set at liberty them that are bruised, 

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 

And then he closed the book, and gave it again to the 
minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that 
were in the synagogue were fastened on him. There was 
something in his voice and manner which led them to look 

127 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

at him with earnest expectation. When all were gazing 
and eager to catch his words, he hegan to say unto them : 
" This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." And all 
bore witness to the truth of what he said, and wondered at 
the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. His 
sermon was fitting to the text, — good news for the poor, 
heavenly healing for those whose hearts were breaking, 
liberty to bruised captives, light for those in darkness ; a 
new era of mercy from the Lord, who was now fulfilling 
the cherished hopes of God's people during all the cen- 
turies since Adam and Abraham. 

But they could hear no more ; they could not get rid of 
the memory of that work-bench where he once stood. 
They asked one another, — "Is not this Joseph's son?" 
And he turned on them suddenly, suggesting what was in 
their thoughts, — unbelief down at the bottom, and curios- 
ity to know whether he would not perform in their sight 
such miracles as he was said to have wrought in Caper- 
naum. And he announced to them that the Lord showed 
mercy to whom he would, and strongly implied that it was 
not the divine purpose that he should perform miracles 
among that people, who had already seen the most wonder- 
ful miracle of all, his sinless life, and heeded it not. And 
here they were — interrupting his gracious words, by ask- 
ing about his father and f amity. It was what they had 
always said. 

And all they — in that packed and ill- ventilated syna- 
gogue, — when they heard him talk of God's acting accord- 
ing to his own secret purpose of mercy toward Naaman and 

128 



THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZARENE NEIGHBORS. 

the widow at Sarepta, were filled with wrath ; and rose 
up, and with all the fury of an oriental mob thrust him out 
of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon 
their city was built, that they might cast him down head- 
long. But he passing through the midst of them went his 
way. 

When he made his next visit to the place where he was 
brought up, their unbelief had so far given way that when 
they heard him in the synagogue on the Sabbath, they ad- 
mitted that he had performed miraculous deeds, and that 
he had a spirit far above the common. Hearing him they 
were astonished, saying, "From whence hath this man 
these mighty works, and this wisdom ? And what wisdom 
is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty 
works are wrought by his hands?" But that carpenter's 
shop then broke in on their vision. And they asked the old 
question by which they had always excused themselves 
from receiving his example or advice, " Is not this the 
carpenter, the carpenter's son, the son of Mary, the brother 
of James, and Joses, and of Jude, and Simon ? And are 
not his sisters all here with us ? Whence then hath this 
man all these things ? " 

They began then to doubt whether he had all these 
things. They believed him when they heard what he was 
doing on the seashore, but now that he was with them 
again, and they could look at him and get a sight at the 
very hands which once plied the hammer and nail and saw, 
they could not believe any longer. There must be some 
mistake about all this, — they said. And he could there do 

129 9 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

no mighty work, because of their unbelief ; save that he 
laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And 
even Jesus, knowing the Nazarenes as well as he did, mar- 
veled because of their unbelief. They were harder than 
he had thought. With all his knowledge, he learned as a 
new lesson the truthfulness of the proverb he had already 
repeated to them more than once, that a prophet is not 
without honor, — but in his own country, and among his 
own kin, and in his own house. 

If he had come from some far country they might have 
received him. Says an English preacher: "They might 
have worshiped the ' great unknown ' ; they might have 
received a prophet with whose antecedents they were unac- 
quainted ; but to suppose that the representative of the 
Highest should be a Nazarene, that the special messenger 
of God should belong to a family of neighbors, that the 
revealer of the kingdom of heaven, the bringer in of the 
great jubilee, should have been their playmate ; this vio- 
lated their fleshly reason, and they were offended in 
him." * 

Jesus had worked as a plain man at the carpenter's 
bench so many common sort of years — eighteen of them 
— that the high hopes which his own kinsfolk early 
cherished had perhaps died out of them ; and it was only 
of late that Mary and his brethren saw life and vigor im- 
mortal and infinite indicating what manner of man he 
was. How then could these neighbors yet receive the idea 

*The Rev. A. J. Morris. 

130 



THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZARENE NEIGHBORS. 

which so slowly dawned on even his chosen followers, that 
he was indeed the Messiah ? These young men were not 
yet prepared to believe that they had been day by day 
walking with the Infinite Son of God. But the lowly car- 
penter's Son rose, crying, "lam the bread of life ; he that 
cometh to me shall never hunger." And the Nazarene 
mechanic is the central figure of the world's history.* 



*In the foregoing chapter, upon page 126, the allusion to John's Ministry is 
illustrated by Bishop Huntington's Article, page 519. 




131 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

Mystery of trie Wilderness, 



s^- 



^5 S HIS story — the drama of the desert — came into the 

4 I Gospel record, either through its relation by Jesus, 
^— 1— or as a vision from the Holy Spirit to the writers. 
That Jesus related it is most likely. He was not, however, 
given to telling stories about himself for the mere amuse- 
ment of his auditors. He told it briefly, pointedly, like a 
parable, to instruct his disciples in regard to his mission. 

When they had not been long with him, on some day 
when it was apparent to them that Jesus was journeying 
without seasonable food, he may have discerned their 
thoughts or heard hints that he should make bread from 
the stones ; and he would by the story of the temptation 
teach them the true use of miracles. 

And in their ignorance of the real design of Jesus in 
performing wonderful works, they may have expected deeds 
perhaps athletic, that would literally astonish the nation, 
and demonstrate at once his supernatural gifts. If they did 
not hint so much, if even they thought so, he knew it ; and 
would intimate that it was a suggestion of the adversary. 

And in respect to the third temptation, it is well known 

[Book ii.] 132 



THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. 

that the disciples expected their Messiah to set up a visible 
kingdom ; and Jesus would rebuke the thought. 

IT is plain that our Saviour's relation of the brief story of 
the temptation would tend to correct the ideas of the 
disciples upon the points alluded to. He may not have told 
it so formally to the whole company of disciples, as to lead 
the evangelists to rehearse it as a parable. If he told it, 
perhaps more than once, or perhaps part at one time and 
part at another, to this disciple or that, as need might 
require, it is easy to see how the story would appear in the 
Gospels without being designated as a parable. The dis- 
ciples undoubtedly understood the story to be not parabolic, 
but historical ; standing for a fact in the life of Jesus. 

So standing, it is a mystery. It is to be classed with the 
mystery of the two natures. We do not, and cannot, under- 
stand the mysterious union of the human and the divine in 
the person of our Lord ; nor can we understand how in any 
proper sense he could have been tempted of the devil. 

We do best to take the story as we find it, and we are 
not to insist too much upon explaining it at all points. 
This accords with a rule in exposition which we apply to 
the parables of our Lord : they are designed to teach one 
principal lesson, and an interpretation is not to be de- 
manded for every detail, — " a' parable is not to be made to 
walk on all fours." 

The main design of this story of the temptation of Jesus 
is to show, that he believed, as it appears also elsewhere, in 
a personal devil ; and that in his own life, after his baptism, 

133 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

before the beginning of his public ministry, he had to 
decide once for all whether he would conduct his ministry 
in such a manner as to please the devil and the Jews ; and 
that in deciding upon the course to be pursued, he elected 
to follow the mind of God as expressed in the tenor of the 
Scripture. * He chose a course counter to the Jewish 
thought, and it ultimately led him to death by Jewish 
hands. In it all, however, he fulfilled the Scripture ; he 
ought, as he told the Emmaus disciples, to have suffered. 

WHEN Jesus as a child inquired in the temple, he may 
have asked the learned doctors whether the Messiah 
would be a suffering Saviour. When therefore a divine 
voice, in the hour of baptism, put an end to all questioning 
as to his own Messiahship, " Thou art my beloved son, in 
whom I am well pleased," he had to make up his mind as 
to the course that he would pursue. For six winter weeks 
following, he roamed over wild hills and in desert places, 
prayerfully planning the details of his mission, so far forth 
as to fix once for all the principles upon which he should 
proceed ; deciding (among the limestone cliffs and caves of 
the wilderness f near Bethabara) just how to use and how 
not to use his miraculous powers, and deciding to contra- 

* " Jesus saw the short, Satanic path to Messianic domain, but chose 
Gethsemane and Calvary." — Roswell D. Hitchcock, LL.D. 

f According to Stanley and Edersheim. — It is a strip of country 
thirty-five miles by ten ; a region sorely shaken by earthquakes, and torn 
by winter torrents, an appalling desolation of deep rifts and rocky 
ridges, — sometimes a cut thirty feet wide and a thousand deep. 

134 



THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. 

vene the Jewish devil that urged him to set up a visible 
kingdom. Thenceforth, with the baptism of suffering be- 
fore him, he was straitened till it should be accomplished. 

It is clear that the divine voice related to his Messianic 
work, and that the temptations related to it. The Messianic 
idea was developed a little at a time in the mind of Jesus, 
and now the hour had struck ; and he must be alone with 
the Father and the angels, and must repel unscriptural sug- 
gestions that threatened his Messiahship. He who knew 
what was in man, had now arrived at so clear a conception 
of the wickedness of the world, that he could foresee at a 
glance what would come to him if he should continue to 
please God rather than those who misrepresented God in 
the Holy Land.* The breath of hate, the curses of wrong- 
doers, the shameless faces, the beginnings of woe, caused 
the Saviour to shudder, as he anticipated them in the 
wilderness. The fall of the Mosaic system was impending. 
He could see that it would bring him to the cross, f 

We do not understand that Jesus saw Satan, when the 
devil desired to sift Peter as wheat. And whether sleeping 
or waking he may not have seen the grim adversary among 
the wild beasts of the desert. Bleak were the ledges where 
he felt the weight of demoniacal suggestions ; and where 

* Visiting Jerusalem thrice annually during eighteen years, he had 
come to well settled convictions concerning the unscriptural administration 
of Judaism by priests and rabbis. 

f " Jesus took upon himself the sentence of death in the wilderness," 
says Bushnell, " and bowed himself in consecration upon it ; coming out 
to live martyr-wise." 

135 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he decided that they were demoniacal and unscriptural 
views of Messianic work. And the drear scenery shone 
with new light, when he was visited by the angels of God. 

It need not be thought that if Jesus was tempted in all 
points as we are, that the trial was in the desert. He was 
tempted in all points before and after ; tempted " vehe- 
mently/' tempted to say and do unwisely, impatiently. 
Here it was temptation relating to his Messianic work. 
When the Saviour afterwards spoke of the sufferings he 
was to endure, and Peter said, " That be far from thee," 
Jesus knew that this was the old Satanic suggestion to seek 
his kingdom in a way not laid down in the law and the 
prophets. 

The unholy legions of the prince of the power of the air 
were alert when Jesus came, and it was a part of his hu- 
miliation that his divinity was so concealed that Satan 
might venture to question it. The head of the serpent that 
had trailed through Eden, was now crushed in the desert. 

Conscious of a will of his own * Jesus sought not to do 
his own will, but to please God ; and the brightness of his 
holiness was never tarnished. 

"Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle." 



* " If from the constitution of his person it was impossible for Christ 
to sin, then his temptation was unreal and without effect, and he cannot 
sympathize with his people." — Charles Hodge, LL.D. 

A quaint German writer says, that as the Lord went with the angels 
to behold the sin of Sodom with his own eyes, so the Lord came in the 
flesh to know by his own experience if the temptations of men were as 
difficult as David and the men of the Old Testament had often represented 
them in their prayers. 

136 



THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. 

" The Lord God will help me ; I shall not be confounded : 
therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I 
shall not be ashamed." Had the demon assailed a rock in 
the desert, he could not have been more completely foiled. 

So the lily asserted itself amid desolation, the desert 
bloomed as the rose, and the wilderness became a paradise. 

The Devil's Bread. 

JESUS had not tested his miraculous powers ; he was 
tempted to test it privately for his own convenience. 
Since, however, he had taken upon himself our human 
nature, and the common lot of man, he decided not to forsake 
this line of life at the outset of his mission. Instead of get- 
ting his own living by miracle, he decided to endure hardship, 
leading the life of a wanderer, hungering often. It would 
have violated the very condition of the Incarnation, if he 
had not been subject to the state of ordinary humanity. 
Unless he was ready to enter on a life of privation he would 
never reach the cross. If he had begun his Messianic work 
by a miracle to allay his own hunger, he would have ended 
it by calling on the twelve legions of angels to destroy his 
enemies. And his disciples would have desired to establish 
no self-denying church ; and they would have been tempted 
to sustain its ordinary wants by miracle, and to be very 
particular as to the quality of their bread. 

Had the Christ set out not to deny himself, he would not 
have left the glory he had in worlds on high. Yet, having 
come, he suffered Satanic taunts upon hungering in his 
Father's house. 

137 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

<* He sitteth there in silence, worn and wasted 
With famine, and uplifts his hollow eyes 
To the unpitying skies." — Longfellow. 

" If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones 
be made bread," was the same kind of appeal that was 
made by the demons who crucified him : " If he be King 
of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and we will 
believe him." 

Satan tempted Adam, and he did eat : not so Jesus. It 
was his meat to do his Father's will. He was himself that 
Bread which came down from heaven. 

The lust of the flesh found no response in the Redeemer. 
His godlike powers were not set to getting for himself a 
good living. " Man shall not live by bread alone." The 
leeks, the onions, the flesh pots of Egypt, the quails, the- 
manna, the loaves, the fishes, — these be thy gods, Israel : 
this was a demoniacal suggestion. 

.Ari Acrobatic Leap. 

UPON the face of the story the account in Luke is more 
climacteric than that in Matthew, at least from the 
modern point of view ; the flight from the temple heights 
and the upbearing of angel arms being a more famous thing 
than sitting uneasily upon a throne. The authorities however 
have decided that Matthew has the right of it ; * so that if 
the second temptation had succeeded we should have seen 
the strange spectacle of the Carpenter's Son executing 
somersaults, or leaping through the air, falling from dizzy 

* Trench, Farrar, et al. 

138 



THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. 

heights as once Satan fell from heaven : * and if this pro- 
posal was rejected as unwise in the Messiah, then many 
capers that are cut by grotesque disciples in different ages 
are quite inexcusable and blameworthy. There was at least 
religious common sense in the decision of Jesus ; and the 
Founder of our faith gave no countenance to foolhardy ex- 
ploits in the name of piety. 

To jump at demoniacal suggestion, to seek personal dis- 
play and the pride of life, to begin a Messiahship by capti- 
vating the crowd, to exercise a rash faith, to use divine 
powers for gaining the applause of men, to appear as an 
athlete in an age of gladiators and physical prowess, — ac- 
corded not with the dignity and method of the Lord of 
Nature, who began his earthly mission quietly, calling his 
disciples one or two at a time, and making himself little 
prominent : " consciously dissolving self in God's glory." f 

In the first temptation, Satan had said, " Distrust Provi- 
dence " : now he appeared with a Bible under his arm, 
saying, " Trust Providence ; and if you do, then leap — to 
the surprise of the Jews, — God will bear you out in it." 

The ninety-first Psalm is justly esteemed one of the 
finest in the whole collection. The unknown author could, 
however, have had no thought when he penned these words 
that he would become so famous an author as to be read in 
hell ; yet the devil learned a part of it by heart, and used it 

* The pinnacle was at the eastern end of the southern colonnade, four 
hundred and fifty feet above the Kedron valley. 

f J. A. Picton's phrase. 

139 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

to entrap the Saviour of men. He did not, however, quote 
the thirteenth verse, — the trampling upon the dragon. 

It had been said in ancient prophecy that Messiah would 
come suddenly to his temple ; and the Jews looked for his 
appearing in the open heavens, down-flying, and alighting 
among the worshipers of the temple. And this notion was 
presented as a possible way for opening the Saviour's 
mission. Its rejection involved the traversing of rabbinical 
interpretation, which appears to have been suggested by 
the arch-enemy. 

A Temporal Kingdom. 

REMEMBERING royal robes on high, and with no small 
experience in decking out the kings of this world, the 
prince of the power of the air laid claim to the owner- 
ship of our globe ; displaying the most civilized part of it, 
as if upon a magic mountain. Fresh from the workshop at 
Nazareth, Jesus was now brought face to face with the pomp 
and glitter of Rome and the gorgeous East. Satan had bought 
many a man at less price.* It was a temptation to avoid 
self-sacrifice, and find some easy path to the throne of the 
world, f It was a temptation to favor the lust of the eyes, — 

* " A matter of half-a-crown, or ten groats, a pair of shoes, or some 
such trifle." — Bishop Andrews. 

' < The temptation in the wilderness turned on the question what sort 
of a kingdom he should set up, and by what sort of agency ; and he 
rejects every Satanic proposal to establish an outward kingdom by force, 
even by his own miraculous power." — Samuel Harris, LL.D. 

f " The people from whom Jesus had sprung, had lost under the Roman 
yoke the remains of their ancient nationality ; hatred of Home was then 
at its height among them, and in the deserts and mountains of Judea 

140 



THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. 

a temptation typified in the triumphal entry into Jeru- 
salem. 

Jesus, the descendant of ancient kings who had borne 
sway over many generations, he who spoke and acted as 
one having authority, had, however, a Kingdom appointed 
unto him, — a Kingdom in which no tears should flow, in 
which none should sit in darkness, in which all wrongs 
should cease, and in which the truth should go forth 
unbound. He would still his heart, and bide his time. 
And it has been proved that he was able enough to establish 
the Kingdom of God, without asking help of the devil. 
Instead of being drawn to the world, he drew the world to 
himself. 



bands of liberators were daily formed under some patriot distinguished for 
his boldness or some other characteristic. These movements were seconded 
by celebrated prophecies, which had long announced a chief and Saviour 
to the Jewish people. The relation of these ideas and interests to the new 
kingdom, the coming of which Jesus Christ proclaimed, was evident. 
Nevertheless, so far from conniving at and employing them, he trampled 
them under feet." — The Rev. Peke Lacordaire. 



141 



BOOK THREE. 



.-^~fc-X?<- 



Our Divine Helper. 



§&%&<& 



Chapter 1. Page 143. 

At Home toy the Sea, 

Chapter 2. Page 149. 

Stilling the Angry Waves. 



Chapter 3. Page 153. 

Trie Madman of the Tombs, 



Chapter 4. Page 157. 

The Hungry Thousands Fed 



Chapter 5. Page 160. 

The Divine Healer. 



Chapter 6. Page 164. 

New Life for the World. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

A.t Home by the Sea. 



(IV'F we look in upon the home of Jesus by the sea of 
Galilee, we find that when he came and dwelt in 
Capernaum, he left behind him at Nazareth his 
carpenter tools, and appeared as a Divine Me- 
chanic. " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy 
Ghost and with power : who went about doing good, and 
healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God 
was with him." These words contain an epitome of 
Christ's life : he went about doing good. "And great 

* Introductory Note. — That Jesus was the Master of laws super- 
natural is assumed in the Gospel story ; nor is it more needful to question 
how, than to interrogate the Mystery of the Two Natures of our Lord, or 
the Philosophy of the Atonement. The Apostles assume an Atonement 
of some sort, properly so called, without philosophizing upon it ; and the 
Incarnation, without attempting to explain it ; and the miracle-working 
power of our Lord, without debating upon the harmony or clashing of 
natural and supernatural law. 

It does not accord with purposes of this book (which is devotional 
rather than controversial or even expository), to do otherwise than fol- 
low the New Testament trend, in assuming that the miracles were per- 
formed in accordance with laws unknown to men, by a Divine Mechanism 
which the Nazarene Carpenter understood. 

[Book III.] 143 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

multitudes came unto him, having with them those that 
were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, 
and cast them down at Jesus' feet ; and he healed them 
insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the 
dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, 
and the blind to see : and they glorified the God of Israel." 

The intensity of the excitement caused by these miracles 
is better understood by recalling the narrow limits within 
which they were wrought. Palestine, even including the 
region beyond Jordan, was not so large as the states of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, being a trifle larger than 
Vermont ; and the " sea " of Galilee or Tiberias was but a 
lake, Genesareth, eight or nine miles wide and eighteen 
long. 

The lake lies low in a deep basin more than six hundred 
feet below the level of the Mediterranean. Rather tame 
looking limestone hills, with steep sides and round backs, 
rise to a height of from one to two thousand feet on every 
side. Approaching from the west we do not see the water 
till we are near by, and then we look down upon the bright 
blue waves about ten hundred feet below us. We now see 
that the hills do not anywhere advance into the water, and 
that there are no meadows near the shore and no trees to 
speak of. A few scattered palms rise not far from the 
brink ; and almost the whole coast of the lake is lined by 
low shrubs of thorn. There is a little beach of dark-brown 
sand extending the entire circuit ; and many bare isolated 
bowlders, some black, some light, are seen on the margin. 
We discover no sails upon the waters. 

144 



AT HOME BY THE SEA. 

In one part of this sink among the hills there is a plain 
five miles wide and six or seven long. And descending to 
this level we find the sun pouring down upon us with great 
power, shut in as we are by the high rim of limestone 
ledges which rise on either side. The soil here is very 
fertile, and watered by four abundant springs, which pour 
their streams across the plain. And lifting our eyes we 
find ourselves, as if in a vast garden : — Oleanders, in clumps 
thirty feet in diameter and twenty feet high, are blooming 
on the shore of the lake ; and bright colored birds are flit- 
ting through the air, filling the sky with song, — and they 
fly over a lake that is shaped like a harp ; on every side we 
note the date palm, the sugar cane, the pomegranate, the 
indigo, the cotton plant, and the rice fields ; and we gaze 
in delight upon the green grass and the fields of wheat and 
barley, patches of citrons and choice melons ; and upon the 
lower steps of the hills we see olives and vineyards. Snow 
is scarcely ever known here, so that the valley has the 
advantages of a semi-tropical as well as a temperate zone. 

This is the plain of Tiberias : and in former ages the 
shores were more densely clad with trees ; and by careful 
culture, grapes and figs if we are to believe the old his- 
torian were in fruit ten months of the year. And the same 
authority has delighted to dwell upon the peculiar charms 
of this home by the Galilean sea. " Its nature," he says, 
" is wonderful as well as its beauty; its soil is so fruitful that 
all sorts of trees can grow upon it, and the inhabitants ac- 
cordingly plant all sorts of trees there ; for the temper of 
the air is so well mixed, that it agrees very well with those 

145 10 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

several sorts. Particularly walnuts, which require the 
coldest air, flourish there in vast plenty ; there are palm 
trees also, which grow best in hot air, fig trees also and 
olives grow near them, which yet require an air that is more 
temperate. One may call this place the ambition of nature, 
where it forces those plants that are naturally enemies to 
one another to agree together ; it is a happy contention of 
the seasons, as if every one of them laid claim to this coun- 
try." * 

This region was once volcanic, and to the northwest of 
the lake is found an ancient crater three or four hundred 
feet long and one hundred wide ; with steep sides of lava, 
forty feet deep. Seven earthquakes have shaken these hills, 
and rocked the waters of this sweet sea. Sixty years ago, 
a thousand people perished on this plain of Tiberias by the 
earthquake's shock. This therefore is a region where we 
may look to find hot springs. And it is believed that the 
springs of Tiberias would attract great attention in Europe ; 
while those of Gadara, just across the water, were ranked 
as second in the whole Roman empire. This valley was 
therefore a famous watering place in the olden time. 

If now we could have entered the vale of Genesareth in 
the time when Jesus went to dwell there, we should have 
found the whole western and northwestern shores crowded 
with the life of six cities ; whose ruins still remain. Bedouin 
flocks and herds are feeding there to-day among the pros- 
trate columns ; sculptured capitals are overgrown by thorn 

* Josephus. 

146 



AT HOME BY THE SEA. 

and brier. And, in the springtime, bright flowers are 
rising from the ground where these fair dwellings once 
stood. 

Here stood Capernaum ; its present site hard to identify.* 
The streets were not more than six feet wide ; the window- 
less outside walls of the houses giving shade from the heat. 
The dwellings were of lava stone, each with one room, 
twenty feet square and six feet high. There were three or 
four thousand people here when Jesus was a citizen. The 
road from the sea to Damascus passed through this city ; 
and the caravans, that halted here, carried the words and 
deeds of Jesus to Syria, Arabia, Babylon, to Egypt, and to 
Greece and Kome.f 

At the time these cities were standing, the lake must 
have been often white with the sail of fishermen ;J who 
drew out of the blue deep a wonderful store of food for the 
multitudes. And pleasure seekers, to gain relief from the 
heated shores, had their choice of riding on the cool waves, 
or of seeking the breezes which swept the hilltops. So 
Christ one day gathered the people upon the top of one of 



* Dr. Selah Merrill and Dr. Geikie say at Khan Minyeh ; others, 
foui' miles away, at Tell Hum. 

f The people of Tiberias comprised Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, 
Greeks, and Romans, as well as Jews ; a great multitude of Gentiles in 
Capernaum. 

t Josephus gathered two hundred and thirty ships near Tiberias. 
Tarichea, on the south, was famous for shipbuilding. Farrar estimates 
some two hundred scores of boats and ships upon this inland sea, in the 
time of our Lord. 

147 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the peaks overlooking one part of the lake, and there pro- 
nounced the Beatitudes. Or he sat upon the waters of 
Genesareth in a floating pulpit : and as we walk the shores 
there to-day we find little inlets where streams come down 
from between the hills, good places for the fishermen's craft 
to ride near the shore, and we see, on each side the mouth 
of the creek, basaltic rocks which afford pleasant seats, 
where sometimes the people sat while Christ taught them 
from out the ship. And there are wild ravines and elevated 
table-lands favorable for days or nights of prayer, and 
great solitudes on the east of the lake. 

" I have created seven seas, saith the Lord, but out of 
them all I have chosen none but the sea of Genesareth : " 
so said the rabbis. Yet if we walk those shores to-day, and 
dream of them as they were in their days of glory, we find 
ourselves forgetting the beauty of the foliage, the gen- 
erous growths of the harvest, the pleasant homes of the 
thronging multitudes, — and we think only of Jesus who 
came from Nazareth to dwell there ; and. if we can walk 
the paths he trod, and climb the hills where he overlooked 
this sea, and move over the waters which so often upbore 
him, we find more comfort than in all other history and all 
other beauty of this favored spot. Jesus left his inland 
home and came hither, and at once it was said that "the 
people which sat in darkness saw great light " ; he rose 
upon these homes by the sea like the dawning of the morn- 
ing kindling in the east, glancing on the waves, and bright- 
ening their hillsides. 



148 



CHAPTER TWO. 

Stilling the Angry Waves, 



^s*s> 



*7T.S we lift up our eyes and see the mountain wall that 
l\ surrounds us not far away on every side of the lake, 
one of the first things we notice is the break between 
the hills, through which the cool breezes sweep in upon the 
heated valley. The Syrian sun is singularly fierce in this 
enclosed area, and the low shores and the plain of Tibe- 
rias glow with furnace heat ; but when the sun sinks in 
the west, the winds from the mountains begin to blow 
through the gorges as if they were tunnels or blow pipes, — 
sometimes in a short squall, or again they roar through the 
ravines all night. Occasionally by day we may look out 
upon the waters, when all is serene on the shore, and see 
sheets of foam, — a sudden tempest boiling in the midst of 
the sea, shaking the fishermen's boats and terrifying those 
who are tossed on the boisterous waves. This is caused by 
some heavy wind coming down from a high rift in the 
mountains, striking the surface of Genesareth, stirring up 
a fury, then glancing off, and striking the opposite hills 
high up, leaving either shore of the lake quiet.* 

*H we go to Mount Desert, upon the coast of Maine, where moun- 
tains rise directly out of the briny waves to a height of from a thousand 
[Book in.] 149 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

The apostolic fishermen of the Galilean sea were there- 
fore often in peril. And one night they received Jesus into 
their ship, " even as he was," weary with his labors ; and 
he was at once lulled to sleep by the music of the waters 
rippling against the sides of their ship, — resting his head 
upon some rail or block for his pillow.* And there came 
down a storm of wind on the lake, "and the waves beat 
into the ship," so that it filled. "The ship was covered 
with the waves," and they roused the sleeper, saying, 
"Lord, save us: we perish." But as an ancient Roman 
general once, rebuked his boatmen for being afraid to 
launch out upon a stormy flood when he was to go with 
them, so now Christ, the true Lord of the seas, said, "Why 
are ye fearful, ye of little faith ? " So says Bengel, " Jesus 
calmed first the minds of his disciples, then the sea." He 
arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, " Peace, 
be still." And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm ; 
and then in that strange calm, he again asked, " How is it 
that ye have no faith ? " 

Whether or not the remainder of the night was filled 
with songs we know not : but we can easily imagine the 
rougli sailors singing, as they bailed out their boat, one of 
the old Hebrew hymns : "The Lord on high is mightier 
than the noise of many waters ; yea, than the mighty waves 

to eighteen hundred feet, we find similar phenomena ; so that it is need- 
ful there to caution the unwary against the fierce arms of the wind, which 
may at almost any moment sweep out from a cleft in the hills, to overturn 
the barks of those who think to sail serenely along that savage shore. 
*Or the steersman's leather cushion — Farrar. 

150 



STILLING THE ANGRY WAVES. 

of the sea." And perhaps there were angel bands hovering 
over them also singing, " The Lord sitteth upon the floods ; 
yea, the Lord sitteth king forever." 

Upon another night, when the purple sunset shadows 
were falling upon the lake, after a day of great toil, Jesus 
departed into a mountain to pray ; yet his eye was often 
turned from out his wild closet to watch the billows which 
were breaking against his sinewy disciples, as they tugged 
heavily at their oars in rowing against a contrary wind 
almost all night. Black scuds were flying across the sky, 
half obscuring the light of the stars or the paschal moon ; 
and Jesus, sheltered from the wind in some pocket of the 
crags on the mountain side, often looked out to see what 
headway was being made by that dark boat dimly seen, 
which bore his own loved ones. And at last he went down 
to the shore and stepped forth upon the uplifted waves, and 
walked as firmly over their rough backs as when he trav- 
ersed ragged rocks of the hard hillside. With light and 
easy motion he trod the fickle sea ; the wind tearing at his 
garments, and the waters rising and clapping their white 
hands about him, yet serenely adapting himself to the 
changing surface, like a bird in mystic motion upon the 
rising and falling waves. 

It is no wonder that his disciples cried out for fear at the 
strange apparition, visible in a patch of silvery moonlight. 
As presumptuous Peter went forth to meet him, the noise 
of the wind in the rigging and the dash of the water caused 
his confidence to collapse ; yet Jesus soon placed his feet 
upon the ship's planks, — bearing with him the drenched 

151 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Peter. And the wind suddenly ceased. We do not wonder 
that his disciples in their stress "were sore amazed in them- 
selves beyond measure ; and that they, that were in the 
ship, came and worshiped him who had spoken, " It is I, be 
not afraid." " Of a truth," they said, " thou art the Son of 
God." Then swiftly plowed their keel the waves, as if 
breathed upon by a gale from heaven, so that "immedi- 
ately the ship was at the land whither they went." 




152 



CHAPTER THREE. 

The Madman of the Tombs, 

^3o£<©> 

^^\ UT more wild than the raging of fierce sea waves 
was the tempest which tore the souls of lunatics, 
*J i who once dwelt in the tombs upon the hither 
shore of these waters of Galilee : nay, the mad- 
men are dwelling there to-day.* A recent traveler descend- 
ing one of the mountains east of the lake, tells us that, as 
he passed through a Moslem cemetery in the night, he 
found a naked maniac fighting with dogs for a bone ; and 
the wild man seized his horse's bridle, and almost forced 
him off the brink of the cliff. 

Could we have crossed the lake in the Saviour's time, 
going a few miles inland, we should have seen the city of 
Gadara hanging aloft upon a rough and high mountain 
ridge, with sides so abrupt and with top so sharp that it 
would seem, says the historian, the city must fall down by 
its own weight ; the southern part of the mountain rising 
to great height like a citadel. It was compactly built, per- 



* The modern region is so like the ancient that Renan calls it < 'A 
fifth gospel; mutilated, but legible still." 

[Book III.] 153 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

haps half a mile east and west, and a fourth of a mile north 
and south. The city was in some sort unique. An amphi- 
theater was cut out of the living rock. The main street 
was forty-five feet wide, lined each side with a row of Co- 
rinthian pillars ; and it was paved with blocks of black 
basalt, — the pavement remaining to this day, and showing 
the marks of chariot wheels which rolled that way eighteen 
hundred years ago. In the sides of the limestone ridge on 
which the city stood, many of the ancient tombs remain, 
affording rooms perhaps twenty feet square, in which the 
modern Gadarenes have their homes. Similar tombs are 
found in many places away toward the lake side ; and it 
was among these tombs that Christ found the madman, — 
after he had stilled the waves of the sea in the day of tem- 
pest. And it was from this city on a hill, whence the 
astonished people came to see the maniac and his Saviour. 
The evangelists give a wild picture of the man. He had 
devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any 
house, but in the tombs. And no man could bind him, no, 
not with chains : because he had been often bound with 
fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asun- 
der by him, and the fetters broken in pieces : neither could 
any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in 
the mountains, crying, and cutting himself with stones. 
And he was exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by 
that way. "In the paroxysms of his huge woe," adds the 
commentator, * "he tore apart the massive fetters as 

* George Shepard, D.D. 

154 



THE MADMAN OF THE TOMBS. 

though mere flaxen strings, and then ranged abroad in a 
horrid freedom, uttering shrieks and yells, that reverber- 
ated among the mountains and echoed over the sea, so that 
no one dared pass that way ; thus infuriate was he with the 
demons and the hell within, and bloody all over with the 
gashing stones." 

Do you ask, What was a demoniac ? I answer in the 
words of an English preacher, * " A spiritual burglar bro- 
ken into a man." And this man had a legion of demons 
raging within : " a legion," like a squadron of Roman sol- 
diers in fierce battle array. But Jesus came near ; and as 
he had subdued the sea waves, so now he subdued the 
storm in the mind of the madman, — Peace, be still. And 
the man quieted himself, and sat at the feet of Jesus ; while 
the demons raced down the mountain side upon the legs of 
swine, f 

The one out of whom the devils were departed, besought 
Christ that he might be with Him ; he felt safe only by the 
side of the Saviour. But Jesus taught him that the way to 

*Eev. A. J. Morris. 

f The Author, in the text, has followed the average commentator as to 
the Gadarenes. Farrar, however, locates Gadara some distance south 
of the lake, and thinks the miracle took place near Gergesa ; the Gersa, or 
Kerza of the modern Arab. This notion is favored by Thomson's Land 
and Book. If so, the Gadarenes, it is likely, had joined the multitude 
that thronged wherever Jesus appeared. 

As to the swine, the Gergesenes preferred their swine to their Sav- 
iour ; as, at a later period, the rabble voted to rescue the robber Barabbas, 
instead of their Messiah. 

A quaint commentator upon this miracle gravely tells us, — "It is 
self-evident that a herd of swine could not be confederate in any fraud." 

155 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

be rid of evil spirits was to go to his friends proclaiming his 
new Master, telling how great things the Lord had done for 
him. And it would seem from the record that the Holy 
Spirit henceforth possessed him, and used him with great 
power. 

Returning again to Capernaum, we find Jesus casting 
out a devil in church : for demons had dared to enter the 
synagogue. So the Lord of heaven, in wild waste places or 
in cities, in tombs or in meeting houses, rebuked the spirit- 
ual foes of man. 



m 



G)(D 



156 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Hungry Thousands Fed. 

-£»$««£. 

IF now we go forth again by the lake side, we shall 
find Jesus thronged by five thousand people hunger- 
ing for the bread of life, and before they left him 
hungry for the bread which perisheth. And he 
spread a table there and fed them all. It was in a desert 
place to which he had gone to find rest ; but the multitudes 
crowding on their way to the feast of the passover at 
Jerusalem were bent upon tasting first this Bread which 
had come down from heaven, and they restlessly sought 
till they found him. Mothers with their children and with 
their own aged parents, were made to sit as if around their 
own home table. High limestone cliffs rose not far off, but 
here the grass was green, and Jesus, who was thought by 
Mary after the resurrection to be the gardener, now ar- 
ranged the people, according to Mark, in "garden plats." 
The artists of the world have greatly delighted in painting 
the appropriate scenery of this miracle, with its crowds of 
oriental people. 

It was in the month Nisan, when the fields were aglow 

[BOOK III.] 157' 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

with flowers ; and the gay colors worn by this oriental 
crowd made a great impression upon Peter, when the red 
and the yellow and the blue were seated in little companies 
of fifties and hundreds. Perhaps, as one has suggested, 
they were arranged in two semi-circles : having, in the 
outer, thirty bands of one hundred ; and, in the inner, forty 
bands of fifty ; each company being placed upon three 
sides of a square, with the fourth side open — according to 
the eastern form of laying tables : thus the whole throng 
of five thousand could be easily waited upon without con- 
fusion. 

So Christ was an organizer, a general, a natural ruler ; 
and we behold him reigning in the desert over an orderly 
town suddenly rising out of the wilderness. We can hardly 
wonder that after they had tasted his heavenly bounty they 
wished to take Jesus by force and make him a king ; which 
he thwarted by wandering off into the mountain solitudes 
alone. 

The people had followed Christ, taking literally no 
thought as to what they should eat or what they should 
drink, and now all things were added unto them. Jesus 
had boundless resources, and they did not need to go away ; 
they found all things in him, as if he were "the world's 
housekeeper."* "Give ye them to eat." "Open thy 
mouth wide and I will fill it," said he " who had the key of 
heaven's garner at his girdle." 

Christ set herein an eminent example to feed the hungry 

♦Joseph Parker, D.D. 

158 



HUNGRY THOUSANDS FED. 

on something besides tracts and theology. Yet he gave 
them simple diet, bread and fish.* Doubtless the power 
which multiplied these could have fed them with more 
toothsome food than barley, which was distinctively the 
food of the poor ; but he made no attempt to please their 
palates with pastry. 

That the bread was good, not spoiled in the making, 
seems evident from the relish with which they took it. 
From what followed, we know that the people thought the 
feast good enough to come from a king. So Christ digni- 
fied the business of bread making : to do that work well is 
a true heavenly gift. But it is written that Jesus did not 
undertake it without first praying over it : so all the evan- 
gelists particularly notice. Prayers rising from the kitchen 
must be therefore acceptable to God. So good a woman 
as Mary Lyon said she always spoke to God about topics 
she should be ashamed to speak of to earthly friends. To 
pray over burnt biscuit and save one's temper is pleasing 
to God. Cooks as well as kings are heard in heaven. 

Moreover the bread was increased in the distribution, 
and they had more left at the end of the feast than at the 
beginning. Yet he who made so much would not tolerate 
wasting : if he was bountiful, he was economical, — saving 
the fragments. 



*Johnvi: 1-4. The fish were dried or pickled, to be eaten with 
bread. The Greek term indicates minute knowledge of the lore of Gali- 
lean fisher-folk ; showing that the fourth Gospel was written by one know- 
ing well Genesareth. Vide Edersheim's Life of Christ. Vol. I., p. 682. 

159 




CHAPTER FIVE. 

The Divine Healer. 

' ~i£;(& (Si (Si (Si ^k&;~ ■ 

O find we this poor Mechanic from Nazareth, the 
Carpenter's Son, making a great stir in the 
neighborhood of the shining Galilean sea ; 
everywhere performing wonderful works, ex- 
citing the minds of people and drawing together immense 
multitudes to receive the blessing which by word and deed 
he bestowed on all freely as the sunshine or the dews of 
night. Crowds of men and women and children turned 
out of their homes with all their sick folk ; * and they 
surged through the streets of Capernaum searching for 
Jesus, or they gathered, waiting at the gates of the city 
to see him coming home from nights of prayer or errands 
of mercy in the country round about. And strangers 
from afar left their common employments, and journeyed 
to this city by the sea ; and the whole population was in 
movement to behold the Lamb of God to whom John 
pointed, — as, a few months before, they had all flocked 



*Arciibisiiop Whately said that Jesus only twice made bread, lest 
the supply of want multiply want ; but often healed the sick, which would 
not increase the objects of charity. 

[Book III.] 160 



THE DIVINE HEALER. 

to the banks of Jordan to receive baptism at the hands of 
the forerunner of Christ.* 

There was something in the face, the eyes, the appearance, 
and words of Jesus, which led the needy to confide in him, 
and bear to him their diseased. Whether in the narrow 
streets, or without in desert places, they came to him from 
every quarter. St. Mark declares that at one time Jesus 
could no more enter his own city openly, on account of the 
numbers who thronged about him whenever he was seen. 
How often I dream about it, and wish I could have been 
there a little before sunset. In the cool of the day the 
Saviour came forth from retirement, and according to the 
saying of the prophet, " himself took our infirmities and 
bare our sicknesses." It is said that he laid his hands on 
the sick and healed them all. His heart was full of sym- 
pathy ; and it is emphatically said again and again that he 

* The swift succession of stirring events in the life of our Saviour 
appears in the chronological sequence of certain events connected with this 
story. It was upon the sixth day of the week that Jesus left Capernaum by 
boat at noontide. A multitude followed around the shore to meet him at his 
landing. Jesus, however, sought to be alone with his disciples ; but the 
great gathering crowd moved him to compassion, and he took up again his 
burden of teaching, and healing the sick. Then followed the miracle of 
the five loaves and two fishes. Jesus then disappeared, and the people re- 
tired to their villages before the Sabbath should begin. The disciples by 
command of Jesus attempted to return to Capernaum by water, and worked 
nine hours against the wind. Then Jesus walked on the water, rescued 
Peter, and the wind ceased at three in the morning. At Capernaum, 
Jesus visited the synagogue, and the greatly excited elders questioned him. 
Then followed the discourse in the eighth of John ; and many who de- 
sired the day before to make him a king, now forsook him, — upon his 
claim to be himself the Bread from heaven. 

161 11 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

touched the diseased, placing loving hands upon them, 
even when a word would have done as well. He had com- 
passion on a loathsome leper, and drew near, and reached 
forth the healing arm to him. His fingers were put upon 
the eves of the blind, and in that day the eyes of the blind 
saw out of obscurity and out of darkness. It came to be 
understood that his touch was life, and that the very fringe 
on his garment — by which as a child of Israel he was re- 
minded to keep the commandments of God — had healing 
in it. It is said, therefore, that " they pressed upon him to 
touch him, as many as had plagues " : and again it is said 
that "the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there 
went virtue out of him and healed them all." Jesus felt 
the power going forth, even if one touched him secretly ; 
and he was exhausted by healing, and worn down by sym- 
pathy.* 

To many of the sick, new spiritual life was imparted in 
their healing. For he asked, Believest thou that I can do 
this ? and according to their faith it was unto them. By 
faith, inwrought, they rose to life everlasting. The figures 
of these obscure persons have come down to us through 



*In illustration of this point, Dr. George F. Pentecost has related 
that a beautiful and pure woman went into a New York prison, where she 
saw a miserable wretch, wrecked by a life of licentiousness and debauched 
by drink. She approached to speak to her, and as she did so, stooped 
down and kissed her polluted lips. The woman sprang to her feet as 
though she had been touched with fire, and then, bursting out into great 
sobs of penitence, fell at the feet of the Christian woman who had kissed 
her. " Do you come to me in the name of Christ ; and do you kiss me 
for his sake? Then he who has put such pity in your heart will save me." 

162 



THE DIVINE HEALER. 

eighteen centuries, photographed upon the Gospel page, be- 
cause for one moment the blessed Light of the World shone 
upon them ; all their former and their later lives unknown 
to us. Some of them doubtless have names now well known 
in heaven. And we ourselves may some day take these pic- 
tures, and stand beside them ; and see if we can identify a 
maniac who sat at the feet of Jesus overlooking Genes- 
areth, or certain Roman rulers who pleaded with Jesus to 
save a son or a servant. 




163 



CHAPTER SIX. 

New Life for the \Vorld. 

ONE day in Capernaum, Jesus went into the chamber 
where a dead maiden was lying : but he looked on 
death as a mere sleep, and by a word awakened her to 
life again. So upon another day, going forth from his 
home by the sea, he walked toward Jerusalem to attend the 
passover : and when he approached the hillside on which 
stood the city of Nain, — walking a path we now may tread 
to the very gateway, — he, the Consolation of Israel, met a 
great procession ; for the light had gone out from the wid- 
ow's house, and they were making mourning for an only 
son, most bitter lamentations. And when the Lord saw 
the mother, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, 
" Weep not." Jesus wiped away all tears from the eyes of 
the mourners, and there was neither sorrow nor crying, for 
there was no more death : so was fulfilled upon the earth a 
promise made for the heavens. Christ touched the bier, 
and they that bare him stood still : no nearer to the grave 
should he be borne. And Jesus said, " Young man, I say 

[Book III.] 164 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 

unto thee, Arise." And he that was dead sat up,' and be- 
gan to speak : and he delivered him to his mother. Then 
came fear on all : and they glorified God saying, A great 
prophet is risen up among us ; and God hath visited his 
people. 



THESE scenes in the neighborhood of Jesus' home by the 
sea, are only specimens of an unwearied activity ex- 
tending throughout his entire public ministry, and 
manifested in almost every place trodden by his sacred 
feet. Let any person read St. Mark's Gospel at one sitting 
— it will take only about an hour — and see the whole won- 
derful panorama of Christ's life unrolled at once, and he 
will be ready to use the hyperbole of St. John, and believe 
that if the works of Jesus had been all recorded in their 
fullness the world itself would not hold the books written. 

"Evil spirits," says Chrysostom, "everywhere fled and 
started away from him. Satan covered his face and re- 
tired ; every kind of infirmity was loosed, the graves let free 
the dead, the devils those whom they had maddened, and 
diseases the sick. One might see eyes fashioned, palsied 
and distorted limbs fastened and adapted to each other, 
dead hands moving, palsied feet leaping amain, ears that 
were stopped reopened, and the tongue sounding aloud 
which before was tied by speechlessness. For having taken 
in hand the common nature of man, as some excellent 
workman might take a house decayed by time, he filled up 
what was broken off, banded together its crevices and 

165 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

shaken portions, and raised up again what was entirely 
fallen down." 

So wrought the Carpenter's Son: " Jesus of Nazareth, 
anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, went about 
doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, 
for God was with him." 



3UCH deeds we expect to find manifested by God's own 
Son. The Incarnation was the great miracle, and the 
works which we admire were his natural deeds.* He 
could touch the secret springs of nature, and by one flash 
of the Almighty Power set the world to wondering. He 
who filled the grapevines year by year with fruit could 
easily change water to wine in a moment. And men who 
never heeded the divine power in common things were ar- 
rested by the unusual acts of Christ, as if they heard celes- 



* Minor miracles are not wisely contended for : if Christ is truly 
the Son in the Holy Trinity, the deeds of wonder-working are cred- 
ible, being wrought by the fiat of One who knew how to handle the 
forces he had made ; if he was not, then no miracle is worth debating 
about. The question of the Incarnation itself does not depend on the 
verity of the minor miracles ; it is settled upon other grounds. As evi 5 . 
dences, the miracles do not prove the Deity of Christ ; although they 
sealed his Divine mission, as the miracles wrought by prophets and 
apostles attested their calling. 

Compare Isa. xxix : 18, 19 ; and xxxv : 5, 6 ; and lxi : 1, 2, with Matt. 
xi : 2-5, and Luke vii : 19-22. 

The true use of the story of the miracles, to-day, is for showing the 
philanthropic, or what Edersheim calls the theanthropic, ministrations 
of our Lord. 

166 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 



tial music sounding in the skies, and calling them to hear 
the voice of God's only beloved Son. 



YET I hear a strange voice resounding among the Galilean 
hills or echoing on the shores of the sea. It is a voice 
of cursing, "Woe, woe." It is Jesus himself denouncing 
those cities in which his mighty works were done, for their 
unbelief. " This upbraiding," says the commentator,* "is 
the prelude to the Last Judgment." And may we not fear 
lest we ourselves stand in the line of these curses, if like the 
lepers we are unthankful recipients of mercy, and unmoved 
by the gracious deeds of the Saviour of men : or if we are 
moved by them only to place ourselves as tools in the hands 
of Christ's enemies ; like him who waited for the disturbing 
of the water, halting through years of infirmity, and then, 
when the Saviour drew near, having no faith, and not 
knowing who healed him, — and when knowing, betraying 
him to persecuting foes. We can, if we will, misuse all the 
loving deeds of Christ in our behalf, and spurn him as a 
mere carpenter's son of common lineage. If so, let us 
beware lest it be more tolerable in the Day of Judgment for 
Sodom than for us. Were all things created by Christ, and 
we by him? All things created for him, and we not for 
him ? 

*J. A. Bengel, D.D., 1752. 



167 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 



YET I also hear the voice of Jesus saying, " Blessed are 
they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And 
I am glad that I never saw him, and that I stood not with 
his disciples when their bread was increased, or when their 
nets brake with miraculous multitude of fish, or when he 
touched the blind or raised the dead ; for, seeing not, I have 
believed, and I may therefore claim a greater benediction 
than belonged to his own loved ones by his side. 

We live, moreover, in days when Christ is working with 
more power than in the ancient times, healing now the 
souls as once the bodies of men. And we may carry to him 
our aged parents, or little children, sisters, brothers, com- 
panions, and friends ; and we may bear to -him our own 
infirmities : and we hear to-day his voice, " Him that cometh 
to me I will in nowise cast out." We will arise and go to 
him, forcing a way through all obstacles, breaking through 
the roof where he is, and lowering our friends at his feet ; 
or, if men charge us to hold our peace, we will cry the more 
a great deal, "Thou Son of David have mercy on me," — 
crying again and again, till Jesus stands still, and the 
disciples say, "Be of good comfort, for he calleth thee"; or 
if Christ himself seems to turn us away as we have long 
despised him, yet in the hour of our need we will go out to 
meet him, and plead like the foreign woman for the crumbs 
that fall from his table, till he shall say, "Great is thy 
faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 

Will the world never learn the lesson taught by the blue 

168 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 

waves and high shores of Genesareth ? Are you tempest 
tossed on life's sea ? See to it that Christ walks the waves 
beside you, or sleeps in your ship. Do you wander in 
deserts or in mountain solitudes ? Invite then Christ to 
go with you, contending with evil/ spirits and praying 
amid the mountains. Are you burdened with many cares ? 
Go, day by day, and tell Jesus : seek his society, his friend- 
ship. 

Every day we will read over the words, and weigh 
them as we read : * 

" I need thee, precious Jesus, I need a friend like thee — 
A friend to soothe and pity, a friend to care for me : 
I need the heart of Jesus, to feel each anxious care, 
To tell my every trouble, and all my sorrows share. 

" I need thee, precious Jesus, for I am very poor, 
A stranger and a pilgrim, I have no earthly store : 
I need the love of Jesus to cheer me on my way, 
To guide my doubting footsteps, to be my strength and stay. 

" I need thee, precious Jesus, for I am very blind ; 

A weak and foolish wanderer, with dark and evil mind : 

I need the light of Jesus to tread the thorny road, 

To guide me safe to glory, where I c hall see my God." 

— Rev. Frederick Whitfield, 
Vicar of St. Mary's Church in, Hastings. 



* These were the lines found in the pocketbook of the late Gover- 
nor Dunlap, of Maine, after his death ; precious words, borne by him in 
journeyings far and near. 



169 



BOOK FOUR. 



■-»$^*-S3«- 



Otir EDxarinLple 
In Self=RenuLnciation 

, ■ ^^Slfe-^ 



Chapter 1. Page 171. 

A. Sino;uilar Life of Service. 



Chapter 2. Page 178. 

An Unselfish Ideal. 



Chapter 3. Page 1u2. 

Trie Hovel and trie Palace, 



Chapter 4. Page 185. 

Moral Miracles. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

.A Singular Life of Service. 



-**•£ 




E sometimes speak of the miracles of Christ as 
being a most striking exhibition of the divine 
power. And we are pointed to them again 
and again as the great wonder in the strange life of the 
Nazarene Carpenter. There is, however, another thing 
more remarkable than all the wonderful works of Christ. 
It is the spirit in which he wrought — a spirit of self-sacri- 
fice. 

That Jesus should have been so self-sacrificing when he 
had the power to perform such miracles was a marvel in 
his lifetime ; and the wonder has increased in all the ages, — 
the greater wonder as men have better known the true char- 
acter of the Nazarene. If the miracles in number and 
character were new to the world, the unselfish life intro- 
duced as a practical power among men was still more 
memorable. It is written that even the Son of Man came 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his 
life a ransom for many. His leading aim was to minister 
to others, and to give up life itself to this end. Self-sacrifice 
was his sole purpose, — living for others, dying for others ; 

[Book IV.] 17^ 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

and his miracles were only incident to this great plan. 
They appear in the scheme of his life only as the tools he 
used in his self-sacrifice for others.* 

Theologians have disputed whether Christ's life and 
death was the more to honor the divine law and satisfy the 
divine justice, or whether it was the more designed for 
an example of self-sacrifice to men. That the atonement 
wrought by Christ's humiliation throughout his entire life 
and by his death, answered both these ends is true. It is 
the unselfish example of Jesus, of which I now speak. 

This self-sacrifice seems greater on account of the mirac- 
ulous power which accompanied it. Jesus performed no 
miracles for his own relief. He took the common lot of 
weariness and of sorrow ; no one made bread for him when 
he hungered, or calmed the storms of heaven when they 
beat pitilessly upon his head. 

He was a wanderer from town to town, depending on 
the charity of his friends, while he bestowed heavenly 
favors in return for the earthly. Said Edward Irving : 
" For a piece of bread he could restore an injured limb ; for 
a meal of meat he could recover a parent from the very 
article of death ; for a night's accommodation he could cast 
out a devil ; and a good reception in any city he could 
conciliate by the recovery of all its sick and disabled peo- 
ple." Yet, in spite of these gifts, he was sometimes hungry ; 
and he, who fed multitudes by miracles, was himself com- 

* " It is probable that the whole system of miracle working was rather 
a condescension of our Lord ; that it looked to him as but an inferior 
ministry." — Bishop Huntington. 

172 



MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. 

pelled to gather heads of standing wheat for eating, as he 
passed through the fields. 

It was in memory of these strange contrasts in the life 
of Jesus, that Augustine set him forth as the great example 
of self-sacrifice, saying : " The Bread came down, that he 
might hunger ; the Fountain came down, that he might 
thirst ; the Way came down, that he might be wearied in 
the way ; the Life came down, that he might be slain : and 
dost thou refuse to labor ? Seek not thine own." So St. 
Paul says : "Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he 
became' poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." 

Think, for a moment, how low a condition he took among 
men. And, in illustration of it, read one or two sentences 
from one of the most eminent of American preachers, 
preaching now through his books to a far wider congrega- 
tion than he ever reached by his voice. "If Jesus," it is 
said, " had come as one born of a good family, if he 
had been a considerable owner of real estate, if he had 
made his journeys in a chariot, and lodged at night with 
distinguished senators and persons of consideration, if he 
had been a great scholar among the rabbis, or had been 
familiar to the people in the livery of a judge, or a priest, 
winning great popularity by the profuseness of his chari- 
ties, and exciting even applause by his attention to low 
people and his tender ministry to their diseases : dying 
finally by some of the modes that are common, to be fol- 
lowed to his burial by multitudes that came to weep their 
loss at his grave — if, I say, he had lived in condition, and 
died as one admired for his excellence, the real depth of his 

173 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

virtue could never even have been conceived. No, it was 
only as he waived the honors of condition in his birth, and 
the comforts of property in his life; became a footman, 
hungered often ; slept under the sky, shivering with cold ; 
spent himself daily in exhausting sympathies, and got 
almost no sympathy in return ; met the looks of crafty 
messengers and spies on every side, and scarcely found a 
place, except in the lone recesses of the mountains, where 
his ear was not all day, perhaps all night, saluted by the 
carping sounds of bigot voices quarreling with his doc- 
trine ; ending finally his hunted, hated, weary life, by a 
slave's death on the cross, — this too, even for enemies, as 
truly as for his friends, — it is here that we begin to really 
look down into the very depths of his bosom, depths holy 
and divine, that no mortal plummet has sounded." 

How strange is the story of the Gospels, that the Lord 
of all the worlds had not in this world a place to lay his 
head. He who made the birds and the foxes, and gave 
them an instinct for making homes for themselves, volun- 
tarily chose to have no home that he might serve those who 
had homes. Besides the privations incident to his own 
choice of ceaseless wayfaring, the malice of men some- 
times deprived him even of common hospitality. Did not 
the Samaritans refuse to give Jesus a lodging ? They 
so agreed in one thing with their enemies, the Jewish 
bigots, in maltreating Christ ; Jesus being left to go forth 
as the bridegroom in the Canticles, saying, "My head 

* Horace Bushnell, D.D. 

174 



MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. 

is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of the 
night." 

We are not to forget the physical exhaustion connected 
with unremitting toils of the Saviour. Did not the multi- 
tudes throng about him, so that there was no time even to 
eat? Was it not said that he was beside himself — being 
consumed by zeal ? " The day is short ; the work is great ; 
the Master presseth : " exclaimed the teacher of the holy 
law. So also Jesus said : "I must work the work of him 
that sent me while it is day :" " My meat and my drink is 
to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work : " 
"I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I 
straightened till it be accomplished." 

Are we not apt to get narrow views of Christ's character 
from the record of his work in certain lines ? Do not 
his miraculous deeds make us forget his skill in teaching ? 
Do not his words of wisdom make us forget the propor- 
tion of his gifts ? It is only by some care in observing the 
story of his life, that we gather hints which show him to 
have been great on every side. Were we to make a cata- 
logue of the elements of character which we associate with 
human greatness, we should find in the Evangelists our 
warrant for believing that the Christ — had he chosen to do 
so — could have excelled in various departments of thought 
and action. But he deliberately subordinated all things to 
his one work of self-sacrifice for the good of others. 

For example, we know that Jesus had moral wisdom 
such as never appeared upon the earth before. And he had 
great persuasive power over men. He could, therefore, as 

175 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

an instructor, have added much to what we now know, and 
have blessed all ages with a boon of heavenly wisdom. 
Yet instead of giving himself solely to this, a large part of 
his ministry was devoted to relieving the wants of suffer- 
ers ; as if to benefit his own neighbors in his own day was 
worth more than his teachings could be to coming genera- 
tions. He could easily have given us a few more chapters 
of his instructions in the Gospel, but instead of Bible-mak- 
ing he went about to heal the blind, cleanse lepers, and 
cheer the sorrowing. He preached, and taught in conversa- 
tions, the doctrines which underlie the Kingdom of heaven. 
But instead of enlarging on these teachings as he might 
have done, as we should think with infinite profit to all 
after ages, he chose rather to show what his religion would 
do in a life. It seems as if his declaration of -the doctrines 
of his new Kingdom was merely incidental, while his absorb- 
ing purpose was to give an example of the spirit which ought 
to pervade that Kingdom. In short, Christ was determined 
to illustrate his own doctrines by his own deeds ; and he 
who went about doing good, found that his commands 
that other men should live unselfishly, would have double 
weight when enforced by his example. So that, even as a 
teacher, he was wise in affording so many good deeds for 
record by his biographers. 

Not till we enter the heavenly world, shall we behold 
Christ's character as it is, in all its proportions. In this 
world all his attributes gave way to the one purpose and 
passion of self-sacrifice. God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son. And he led upon the earth a life 

176 



MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. 

of pure benevolence, and crowned it all by giving life itself, 
a ransom for many. We think it heroic, if we take calmly 
the suffering that comes unexpectedly upon us. But Jesus 
saw the sorrow, and went forward. He steadfastly set his 
face toward it, knowing what he must endure. He selected 
the path of sorrow, for the sake of conferring infinite 
advantage upon the souls of men. All the particulars of 
Christ's life, — his nights of prayer and days in the wilder- 
ness, his hours of teaching and hours of healing, his con- 
tending with foes, and his bitter death, — are all explained 
by this great purpose, expressed in his own words, that the 
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 




177 



12 




v5 



CHAPTER TWO. 

An Unselfish. Ideal. 

UT one thing is still more wonderful than the 
fact of Christ's personal self-denial for the sake 
of others. It is, that he introduced the unselfish 
life as an ideal in the moral world ; and first 
made it a practical power in the lives of men. Outside the 
scheme of redemption revealed in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, there had been no great prominence given to self- 
denial for the sake of others, as the fundamental moral 
principle on which to live ; or if the idea had been suggested 
by other religious systems, none ever succeeded so well as 
the plan of which Christ is the central figure in making 
unselfish living the leading aim of multitudes of men. To 
live for others is the demand of the moral law : supreme 
love to God, and to love other men as one's self, is the Old 
Testament doctrine. This law was a schoolmaster to bring 
men to Christ. And Jesus emphatically taught the same 
lesson by precept, and taught it by his own example. A 
life of unthanked self-denial was put forth as the Christian 
ideal.* Jesus did not teach men to despise the body, or, on 

* " Love as God loves, regardless of merit and of the reciprocity of 
love." — C. J. Vaughan, D.D. 

[book iv.] 178 



AN UNSELFISH IDEAL. 

the other hand, to seek pleasure as the end of life, not even 
moral pleasure ; but to serve God and man unselfishly, and 
thus to gain the greatest joy without seeking it. And the 
fact that our Saviour himself led this life has proved a 
great power in leading others to do it ; the disciples have 
sought to be like the Master. When we look at him calmly 
moving on his life-journey toward the cross, dispensing 
blessings on all he met or passed in the way, we must 
conclude that we shall imitate him only as we deny our- 
selves. We can imitate the earthly life of Christ only by 
seeking to have a spirit like his. 

"And stricken be these feet ere they despise 
The path the Master trod." 

We see the ultimate influence of the precepts and example 
of Jesus in transforming human character in the case of 
James and John, who sought high honor in Christ's King- 
dom. Jesus said to them : " Whosoever of you will be the 
chief est, shall be servant of all." They wanted to get the 
leadership, and Christ told them how to do it. He demanded 
that they should be unselfish, though they should die for it. 
They were baptized with the baptism of Christ, they gave 
life itself : James baptized with his own blood, drawn by a 
sword, and John baptized in boiling oil. So had they high 
honor in the Kingdom. 

As a principle for the conduct of disciples in all after 
ages, none are left in doubt what to do. We have citations 
from two of the apostles. It is said by Peter, "Hereunto 
were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving 

179 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

us an example that ye should follow his steps." And it is 
said by John, " Because he laid down his life for us, we 
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." This is not 
only a pretty sentiment, to be admired as an ornamental 
Christian motto, but a principle to guide the life. Self- 
devotement, not self-development, is the aim of a holy life. 
The leader in the Church of God is the one who leads in 
self-sacrifice. " He that is greatest among you," said the 
Master, " let him be servant of all." 

The example and the words of Jesus make it clear that 
if one seeks to live entirely for others, he is a leader in the 
Church of God. Is any one ambitious ? Let him excel all 
men in self-sacrifice. This astounding principle, announced 
by Jesus, so reverses the world's standard of aggrandize- 
ment,* that there is, somewhere in the world to-day, one 
standing at the head of the human race ; not one great in 
the eyes of men, but the angels know him to be the leader 
of all men in self-sacrifice for others. We talk about one's 
capacity to do this or to do that. He who has the greatest 
capacity for self-sacrifice is king in the moral universe. 

Did not the Lord of the moral universe become incar- 
nate, bear the cross, and suffer crucifixion that he might 
save others ? By it, he has made us to know that this is 
the only thing worth living for — that we are poor, base, 
mean and contemptible, unless we are striving for this more 



* " The Gospel brings new measurements; new standards of value; 
new reckonings of much and little, high and low, humble and exalted, 
strong and weak." — Bishop Huntington. 

180 



AN UNSELFISH IDEAL. 

than for everything else, — to live wholly for others. The 
voice of Christ is constantly calling his disciples to greater 
sacrifices — to become living sacrifices. * A contempt of life 
in following a holy purpose is the very thing Christ had ; 
he carefully conserved his life against his enemies till his 
hour came, and then he gladly laid it down. It was so 
taught, that the only use in prolonging a disciple's life one 
moment is to work for Christ, — to carry through the proj- 
ect of bringing men and women and little children to 
Jesus, that he may heal them : so living a life of self-sac- 
rifice for others, if one lives at all. 



* " Let us listen," says St. Bernard, "to no one, neither to man 
nor to spirit, who would persuade us to come down from the cross ; let us 
persist in remaining on the cross, let us die on the cross, let us be taken 
down by the hands of others and not by our own, after his example, who 
said on the cross, < It is finished.' " 




181 




CHAPTER THREE. 

The Hovel and the Palace. 

'^er<^- is? is? i») ^kac- 

{ truer word has been spoken than that of Mr. H. 
M. Alden (God in His World) : " If we have set 
e) ^ out to find the palace of our King, resolv- 

ing that we will enter in and live with 
him, we are not in the right way, and shall never see the 
palace, nor find the King : he is serving our poor brothers 
in wretched hovels numberless and near at hand, and if we 
will join him in this service, we shall find him there, and 
every hovel will seem to us his palace." 

"The fact that life is a battle," it is said in Harris' 
Kingdom of Christ on Earth, "demands of every Christian 
the spirit of martyrdom. There cannot be a Christian life 
without it. He who has not learned to value duty, fidelity, 
the Kingdom of Christ, more than property, reputation, or 
life, has not learned the first lesson of Christian living." 
"Whoever," says Dr. Storrs, " conceives of Christian serv- 
ice as consisting chiefly in hearing sermons, enjoying the 
pleasant society of good people, cultivating taste and a 
kindly temper, passing temperately through a prosperous 
life, and giving occasionally, of an overabundance, for re- 

[Book IV.] 182 



THE HOVEL AND THE PALACE. 

lief of the needy, has certainly missed the grandest idea of 
his religion concerning true worship." 

These affirmations offer but other ways of stating the 
grand central truth of Christianity, that life's languor is to 
be broken up by the introduction of the living Christ, the 
man Divine, — with a moral enthusiasm so contagious as to 
set fire to every heart, and with a wisdom so far reaching 
and practical as to change the face of society. The Church 
of God can never fulfill its mission as the world's cross- 
bearer — the living indwelling Christ of to-day — by the 
adoption of vaporing resolutions that express sentimental- 
ity indisposed to exertion, or a mere verbal interest in the 
world's woe. To imitate Christ, who pleased not himself, to 
lead a true altar-life, is needful for the salvation of man- 
kind. 

The child of Christ, the partaker of the free gift, the heir 
of heaven, the pilgrim, the stranger, the bearer of the 
Cross, the follower of the Meek and Lowly, is God's ap- 
pointed visitor to the hungry, the naked, the sick, the im- 
prisoned. He was appointed to " remember the forgotten." 
Self-denial costs no struggle in a soul thoroughly disciplined 
in the school of Christ. 

It was the plan of Jesus, to establish his religion solely 
upon the idea of a Divine unselfish love as the rule of 
human life ; making self-sacrifice for the sake of others, 
the normal action of all men. And in this he set the self- 
sacrificing example, — as the Good Shepherd finally laying 
down his own life for the sheep. No other great religion 
was ever so founded. 

183 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

This is the condition precedent in all the work wrought 
by the Master. His preaching and teaching are not to be 
considered as topics that are separated from his life of self- 
renunciation, but rather his self-sacrifice for others is the 
main fact, and all the anecdotes of his ministry are but 
incidental. This doctrine of setting aside all private in- 
terest as the main object in life and taking a course of 
singular devotement in promoting the good of other people 
is at the foundation of all else in the Saviour's life and in 
the Kingdom he sought to establish : self-sacrifice for 
others being but a term to express that unselfish love 
which led God to give his only begotten Son, and which is 
the primal element of that renewed character which con- 
stitutes discipleship. 

It is the imitation of this Christ-character, inwrought in 
disciples by the Holy Spirit — the sanctifying, energizing 
Christ present to-day — that is the main instrument God 
uses in propagating this Christ-idea of unselfish love 
throughout the world : " Sacrifice conscious and uncon- 
scious for the life of others," being, in the words of 
Robertson, "the grand law of the Universe" ; the harmony 
of all the spheres of God being in accord with this note. 



W 




184 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

Moral Miracles. 
*s*3§£*s> 

IT is this idea of disinterested love and unthanked self- 
denial, as the mainspring of conduct — which has become 
the rule for myriads of lives throughout the Christian 
ages — that is more wonderful than the miracles of Christ : 
it is itself more astounding than the incarnation, since it 
has transformed multitudes of human lives, making them 
in a measure divine in aspiration, inspiration, and in the 
performance of acts in accord with the divine mind and 
which fulfill the divine purposes. It is the outcome of the 
transcendent self-sacrifice of the Son of Man. He planned 
to die ; his dying but a part of his ever living — his unending 
influence and present power on the earth. It is the triumph 
of a new commandment of love to lay down life itself for 
one's friends, and to befriend every child of humanity by 
seeking to develop in him a like unselfish loving life, and 
those dormant spiritual energies which he has in his own 
soul as a child of God. 

What was the life of Christ but the creation of a spirit 
that will carry the world for Christ ? What is carrying the 
world for Christ, but a moral miracle greater than any which 
Jesus wrought in the realm of nature ? What is the spirit 

[Book IV.] 185 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

of self-sacrifice, but a moral miracle in a selfish world ? 
What is this, but the germ of all human progress ? 

The quelling of storms on the sea is not so great an ex- 
hibition of the divine power, as that which has appeared in 
the quickening of the human intellect under Christian 
civilization ; by which men have made the powers of nature 
serve in sending glad tidings of peace from nation to nation. 
The power of Jesus in multiplying bread is not so wonder- 
ful as the spirit of Christian beneficence which has so largely 
blessed the population of the globe, and not more wonder- 
ful than the Christian thrift which is raising the world out 
of the reach of famines. And the miracles of healing de- 
moniacs and men with palsy, are only figurative of a higher 
power growing up under Christianity, by which madmen 
and the sick of divers diseases are being systematically 
healed in multitudes ; while the restoring of sight to the 
blind and power of foot to the lame, are not to be mentioned 
with the moral miracles wrought by the divine power in 
the very ages in which we live. So a mediaeval missionary 
to Sweden, when told that his prayers had healed the sick, 
said that if his supplications had power, he desired only 
this miracle, that God would make him a good man, which 
would be the greatest miracle of all, — a miracle that has 
been wrought every day since the Resurrection and the 
Pentecost.* 

*" Is it possible for us to ignore the fact that civilization, in all its 
more conspicuous phases and forces, is distinctively energized by the prin- 
ciple of self-renunciation? Not from the pulpit alone or even chiefly, 
but from the myriad voices of the press, — from the moral writers of every 

180 



MORAL MIRACLES. 

Christ came to do a deed and to organize a work that 
should carry the world, — taking to himself a Kingdom ; and 
the principle of self-sacrifice was the one fitted to his use. 
By it, moral miracles are changing the face of the world ; 
removing sorrow, the curse of sin, and sin itself, the source 
of all our ills.* 

IN the topics succeeding in this volume, it remains to 
examine the methods by which the self-sacrificing spirit 
of Jesus wrought in performing the moral miracles con- 
nected with his mission: the adaptation of his influence to 
individuals and to men in large companies ; and his forth- 
putting of ideas that are related to the principle of self- 
sacrifice ; and certain phases of his life and his death, 
which illustrate his self-devoted love to mankind. 



school, from essayists in politics and public economy, from the drama 
and the stage, from the editorial columns of the most venal newspaper, 
from the realms of fiction, — the truth is unceasingly affirmed and illus- 
trated, that a life of self -surrender and sacrifice is the only true life for 
man on earth." — S. E. Herbjck, D.D. 

* " Greater works than these shall ye do." — "It was historically the 
work of Christ to expel cruelty, to curb passion, to brand suicide, to punish 
and repress infanticide, to drive the impurities of heathendom into dark- 
ness ; to rescue the gladiator, to free the slave, to protect the captive, to 
nurse the sick, to shelter the orphan, to elevate woman, to shroud with a 
halo of innocence the tender years of childhood ; to change pity from a 
Roman vice into a Christian virtue, to change poverty from a curse to 
a beatitude , to change labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and beauty, 
to sanctify marriage, to reveal angelic purity, to create charity with a world- 
wide horizon." — Compare Farrar's Life of Christ, pp. 420, 421, Yol. II. 



187 



BOOK FIVE. 



-*£=B*-.^<- 



Our Pastor and Preacher, 

»$^,^^, <s ^_ . 

Chapter 1. Page 189. 

A Lesson at the Wellside. 



Chapter 2. Page 205. 

His Manner in Attracting: Attention, 



Chapter 3. Page 217. 

His Rhetorical Power. 



CHAPTER OKE. 

A. Lesson ,at the Wellside. 

^**Ms- ■ 

(5n^F the Holy Land is the background of all pictures of 
our Saviour's life, the best introduction to our Lord's 
pastoral ministration is found in the vale of She- 
chem.* Travelers in the Holy Land represent this 
vale as a paradise. Those who approach it, — wearied with 
the glittering, fiery light of an atmosphere which carries 
no moisture, and entering now upon a region where the 
morning and evening air is laden with vapor, — find pre- 
sented to their eyes a charming picture, which is rendered 
still more beautiful by the haze through which it is seen. 
Eegions bare and uncomely, mountain sides with little 
verdure, give place to rugged hills with green slopes, and 
gardens made musical by living waters. For a mile on the 
north of the city, the road runs between cultivated lands. 
The fig, almond, walnut, apricot, mulberry, pomegranate, 
olive, and the orange grow in orchards upon the banks of 
running brooks. The grapevines bear heavy clusters, and 

*N. B. — The conversation of our Lord with the woman of Samaria, is the 
topic of a very suggestive Article by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Chap- 
ter 5, Book xi. 

[book v.] 189 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the mulberry trees grow to an immense size. Picturesque 
olives gather in groves, and their slender leaves of gray 
green, rippling in every breeze, are always a delight to the 
eye. Hosts of song birds enliven the air ; the voice of the 
nightingale recalls, to the European tourist, memories of 
home. Dr. Robinson, our sober American professor, not 
apt to go into ecstasies over anything, declared that this 
valley was a "scene of fairy enchantment." This vale — a 
mile wide and six in length, — is eighteen hundred feet above 
the sea, and the city is built on the watershed, where foun- 
tains are springing and rills are flowing. 

If we pass out of the eastern gate of the city, we shall 
move along the valley under the frequent shade of olive 
trees, until we reach the ground made memorable by the 
patriarchs. When Abraham first entered the promised 
land he set up his tent and altar under an oak at Shechem.* 
It was in this valley that Jacob bought a piece of ground, 
dug a well, and bequeathed it to Joseph. And when the 
patriarch made his home in Hebron, his sons led their 
flocks into this rich vale of Shechem. It was not far from 
here that Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. Jacob's well 
is one of the best identified of the holy places in Palestine. 
One of the most eminent Biblical scholars has stated that 
he would rather stand there than upon any other spot, 

* It was under the shade of this ancestral oak that Jacob buried cer- 
tain idols, charms and earrings, brought by his family from Padan-aram. 
In the latter times when your true Jew wanted to ridicule the men of 
Shechem, he would say, " The relics which our father Jacob buried under 
the oak, were dug up and worshiped by your pagan ancestors." 

190 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

being most sure that he planted his feet upon the very 
ground trodden by the Saviour of men.* 

Would you love to stand by those stones made holy by 
the feet of Jesus, and place your feet in his very steps ? 
No, I would not go there till I should first dig deep for a 
well here, — I would at my own door raise the water of life ; 
I would go out into a quiet valley or upon a secluded hill- 
side near my own home, and there pierce for spiritual 
waters. Unless I can meet Jesus himself, and obtain from 
him such drink that I shall never thirst again, I have no 
wish to go to a spot where Christ talked with another 
eighteen hundred years ago. To make holy places by 
meeting our Saviour in this country is more needful than 
travel over sea : faith is Olivet, love is Galilee. 

WHEN Jesus approached the well he seems to have been 
moved by a holy constraint ; he must needs go that 
way. Traveling north he sat by the wellside, as if 
about to continue his journey by passing along the eastern 
slopes of Ebal without entering the city. He waited there 
while his. disciples went into the town to buy bread. It is 



* There is a pit ten feet square, lined with stone, and in the bottom 
of this pit is the month of the well. The well mouth is arched, and about 
two feet in diameter at the top, and nine feet wide below, cut down through 
the solid rock. It is now about seventy-five feet deep ; once much deeper, 
it has been partly filled with the rubbish of thirty-six hundred years. The 
curbstones are worn with deep grooves, cut by the ropes of the water- 
drawers. In the month of March there is a depth of fifteen feet of water 
in the well ; there is often less, and it is sometimes dry. 

191 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

probable that our Saviour sat with his face toward the city, 
and he may have seen the woman coming out. The town, 
it is likely, at that time, extended somewhat nearer to the 
well than it does now ; the modern town is a mile away. 
When we know the eastern customs we find nothing incred- 
ible in the record that the woman left a city of fourscore 
springs and fountains to go a'little distance to the ancient 
well ; nor need we think that the sacred associations of the 
place were the main ground of her going there. Those long 
residing in the East tell us that the orientals have such 
notions of the purity of water, that they frequently bring it a 
long distance for drinking, sometimes from a fountain miles 
away ; though they draw water for other purposes from 
the deep wells of cities and villages. The wild Arabs are as 
particular as horses as to the water they drink. If Jacob's 
well had a reputation for furnishing what an oriental taste 
pronounced to be good water, that would account for the 
woman's journey. Or, indeed, the woman's work in the 
field may have been near the well ; and, it being six in 
the evening, she may have gone to this ancient well to fill 
her water jar before returning to her home in the city. 

We behold now the Lord of Israel asking water at 
Jacob's well. And here he opened another fountain, a well 
of living water. He of whom it was said that "he receiveth 
sinners and eateth with them," would now drink with a 
Samaritan woman with whom no Jews would have deal- 
ings. Jesus, however, forgot his own thirst in trying to 
satisfy the soul of her who came to the well. He announced 
himself as the fountain of life. 

192 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

" Art thou greater," asked the sneering woman, " than 
our father Jacob ? " 

When, however, the eyes of Jesus pierced her through 
and through, and when she felt that Jesus was grieved at 
her sins, she believed that such sympathy and such penetra- 
tion indicated the presence of a divine teacher ; and she 
was ready to question with him on matters of faith, per- 
haps at first to divert Jesus from talking about her loves 
and domestic experiences. But as he spoke, she was so 
struck with the solemnity of his words to her, that her 
conscience was aroused ; and she believed that Jesus had 
revealed to her the central idea of her life, and had ex- 
posed to her all her sins. And when she referred to the 
coming Messiah (her ideal being in advance of that the dis- 
ciples had, they thinking of a king but she of a teacher), 
she was ready to hear the voice of Jesus : " I that speak 
unto thee am he." * 

At this point the disciples returned, as if by their bread- 
loaves they would choke the outflowing of the words of 
life, in the very moment when the fountain was sweetest. 
Words had been uttered more astonishing than their ears 
had ever heard, — " I that speak unto thee am he : " and 
they came in, marveling that Jesus should exchange a 
word with a woman, and she a Samaritan ; and they began 

* Jesus charged Peter, at a certain time, to tell no man that he was 
the Messiah. It was no departure from this policy, to tell the great secret 
to the woman at the well, and the whole Samaritan city ; since the Jews 
had no ordinary dealings with the Samaritans, — still less did they credit 
their religious affirmations. 

193 13 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

to disturb the heavenly feast by talk of the bread they 
bought in the city. The disciples in going to the city to 
buy bread did not speak to the Samaritan woman, if they 
met her or saw her ; it is no wonder then, that they won- 
dered at Jesus, that he should talk with her. The meat 
Jesus had eaten, the doing of his Father's will, they knew 
not of. The disciples were as blundering as the woman ; 
they knowing not the meaning of the meat upon which he 
fed, as she could not tell what he meant by the living 
water. 

Rest and power came to Jesus through his attempt to 
heal spiritual disease, to enlighten the dark mind, and to 
lead one who was out of the way. He had the joy of an 
angel over the woman's repentance ; or the joy of the 
shepherd in finding the lost. So it is not strange that he 
forgot his weariness and his thirst and his hunger. 

Thus the weary one, at the wellside, gave rest to the 
heavy laden one, who had come unto him. And such spirit- 
ual activity was imparted to this woman, that henceforth 
it was her meat and drink to do the will of the Master. 
She forgot her errand at the well of Jacob, having found 
the true fountain of life. Chrysostom declares that she 
was more zealous than the apostles : " They when they 
were called, left their nets ; she of her own accord, without 
the command of any, leaves her water pot, and winged by 
joy performs the office of evangelists. And she calls not 
one or two, as did Andrew and Philip, but having aroused 
a whole city and people, she brought them to him." And it 
is remarked by Cyril, that Jesus at the beginning told her 

194 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

to call her husband, and at the end she called all the men 
of the city to come to Christ. She proclaimed him who had 
revealed her sins ; she would not hide her manner of life, 
if by it she could reveal Christ. And as the Samaritans 
crowded out to meet him, Jesus said to the disciples, 
"Lift up your eyes, and see the fields white for the har- 
vest." The Jews often gathered to behold the miracles of 
Christ ; the Samaritans now came out by the cityful merely 
to listen to the words of a teacher. The fields were indeed 
white for harvest. And Jesus began to reap ; and the people 
believed on him, not on account of the words of the woman, 
but because they themselves drew the water of life from the 
Heavenly Fountain. And they said, " Now we believe, for 
we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed 
the Christ, the Saviour of the world." 

elE, see a man which told me all things that ever I did : 
is not this the Christ ? " The woman of Samaria 
was astonished at the adaptation of the words of 
Jesus to her personal character and spiritual wants. This 
unpretending work of Jesus in talking with this woman by 
the wayside was — if we look at it in its full bearing — more 
important to the world than the work of many a warrior or 
statesman in some splendid action that has filled the world 
with its fame. This wellside talk illustrates the habit of 
Christ's life : his most vital teachings were put forth, not 
in elaborate sermons, but in conversations. 

When Jesus conversed with Mcodemus alone by night, 

195 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he announced one of the most important doctrines of our 
faith. As the noble Jew searched the slopes of Olivet that 
night, to find the lowly roof which sheltered Jesus, it would 
not have been thought beforehand, that the words he was 
to hear would be proclaimed henceforth from the house- 
tops,* and that the thought given in that secret place in the 
silent hours of darkness would change the face of the 
world — " Except a man be born again." 

It was probably this adaptation of the Saviour's conver- 
sations to the individual wants of men, which preserved 
his words to all generations. They made in their utterance 
an impression which could not be forgotten. Those with 
whom he conversed felt their own needs so thoroughly met 
by his words that they repeated them to all the world, that 
all men might profit by heavenly wisdom. Jesus' habit of 
teaching by conversations led him uniformly to say the 
right thing in the right place ; to fit the truth snugly to 
each case, — to utter in every ear the words which the 
hearer most needed. It was this which made the lesson by 
the wellside so impressive. The woman heard what she 
must hear or fail of salvation. Nicodemus, master in 
Israel, needed to be born again. The stirring Martha, 
drawn about, distracted by cares, needed to learn quiet- 
ness. 

Another element which contributed to the preservation 
of what we should call the casual conversations of Jesus, 

* This conversation itself was most likely on the housetop : the gray- 
headed man and the youthful Jesus alone with God under the stars. 

196 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

was the sympathy and kindness of heart manifested in his 
teachings. The woman at the well had the confidence 
within an hour to trust him as a friend. A living, loving 
teacher could win to obedience those who would not heed 
the cold, stern, written code of the divine law. He was 
known to be the Friend of sinners. Men who deemed the 
law an iceberg, thought of Jesus as the sun. The Master 
proved himself to be a personal guide to men and women 
who found little inspiration and little winning power in 
mere book directions to holy living. The Redeemer of men 
sought out wandering sheep ; he searched for the lost dili- 
gently, as one would for silver lost in the house. He would 
not willingly leave a fallen woman to perish at last in the 
depths of despair. He came to call sinners to repentance ; 
and he associated with them that he might lead them to 
follow his call. He loved men when he hated their sins. 
He accepted the hospitality of the Pharisees, even when 
he rebuked their hypocrisy. There must bave been some- 
thing genial and winning in the society of Jesus, or the 
hospitality of his enemies would not have been urged upon 
him. He was approachable. The children loved him ; and 
the most learned asked him their hardest questions. If the 
rich sought him and invited him to feasts, the poor also 
were with him always, His eyes were full of love. Men 
and women could read in his look a warm affection to the 
human soul. He looked earnestly on men, loving them. 
As men use the eye for sin — sin by a look — Jesus had, on 
the other hand, a godly use of the eye. His heart sought 
every avenue to express its affection for the souls of the 

197 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

perishing. The author of an early Apocryphal book 
writes : " None but the Father could so love his own chil- 
dren as Jesus loved men. His great sorrow was that he 
must be striven against by those in their ignorance, for 
whom he strove as his children ; and yet he loved them that 
hated him, and he prayed for his enemies ; and these things 
he not only did himself, as a father, but also taught his dis- 
ciples to pursue the same course of conduct toward men as 
their brethren." 



THE scene at Jacob's well, setting forth as it did Jesus' 
readiness to enter into religious conversation, and 
the appropriateness of his teachings fitting the truth to 
every one with whom he dealt, and the marked love and 
sympathy with which he wrought upon the souls of men, 
make it proper to speak of our Saviour as engaged frequently 
in what we call Pastoral Work, as distinguished from the 
work of preaching. So far forth as the life of Christ was 
that of a public teacher, he made prominent the parochial 
care, the personal ministry to individuals. So personal 
was all the preaching of Jesus, and so profound and far 
reaching were the principles which he announced in private 
conversation, principles adapted to the wants of men in 
every age, that it is difficult for us to classify the sayings 
of the Saviour, and speak of some as being sermons and 
others as conversations. The most elaborate discourses of 
Christ were conversational, and the words he uttered from 
house to house or by the way are not less weighty and ener- 

198 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

gizing than those words which were spoken in the ears of 
the multitude. Whether we consider the full or the frag- 
mentary teaching of Jesus, they all bear the marks of being 
spoken for the hour, and so deal with the case in hand, that 
it would be impossible to arrive at any correct apprehen- 
sion of the proportion of his teachings, the adaptation of 
his words to all men, modifying all extremes of character, 
without reading page after page of the words of him who 
spake as never man spake. Then indeed we discover that 
he addressed to every man a word in season. 

Do we not, to-day, behold the Son of Man approaching 
us, or sitting by the way, as once by the wellside, where 
we may greet him in the midst of our common avocations ? 
And is he not ready, to-day, to satisfy the peculiar want of 
every soul ? It is by becoming intimate with Jesus that 
we shall be molded and changed till we become like him. 

There is nothing so pleasing in human friendships as the 
modifications of character that are wrought by intimacy. 
Better than martial victories are the " silent triumphs of 
wisdom," as souls are quietly turned off from unseemly 
ways and led to a loftier life. This occurs often in domes- 
tic life. If then we become the intimate friends of Jesus, 
we may expect singular modifications of character to arise 
from the very variety and proportion of his characteristics. 

WE do not always think how great a diversity of charac- 
ters our Lord met in his daily ministry; and he 
sought to right up every man on the side where ha most 

199 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

needed it. This gives an almost contradictory appearance 
to the collated sayings of the Saviour ; the words are how- 
ever but epigrams easily remembered, that tend to 
straighten out the crooks of ill-balanced people, first one, 
then another. 

Is not Jesus the Word ? His very life is eloquent in its 
appeal to us. Whether we read his discourses, or his words 
by the way, or study the lessons taught by his miracles, in 
whatever way we approach the life of Jesus, we find the 
Saviour speaking to us personally, and addressing to us 
just those words .we most need, as if he were the Shepherd 
and Bishop of our souls. 

If one were inflated by wealth, Jesus would appear to 
him as having no home to rest in. If, on the other hand, a 
man were oppressed by poverty and pinched by want, 
Christ would approach cheering him with the hope of 
heaven and the golden crowns. To the rich he said, Go, sell 
that thou hast. To the poor in spirit, he promised treasures 
in heaven. To a hoarding man, Jesus would say, Labor not 
for the meat that perisheth. Of a wasteful man, Christ 
would demand care in gathering up fragments. 

If one should become a friend of Jesus and retain a 
proud spirit, Christ would ask him to bear cups of cold 
water, and wash the feet of his disciples. If, on the other 
hand, the man were lowly and discouraged, Christ would 
appear to him promising thrones and dominions. To the 
high-headed and ambitious, Jesus would say, Except ye 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the king- 
dom of heaven. But he would point the humble and shrink- 

200 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

ing to John the Baptist, and say to them, that the least in 
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Jesus took men 
out of fishing boats, and made them kings and priests unto 
God. But when men approached him who sought for the 
highest places in the Kingdom, he asked them to share his 
baptism of suffering. 

To those who are light and joyous, Jesus appears weep- 
ing over the dooms of the lost. To those who are oppressed 
with grief, Christ draws near, as in the solemn hours of his 
last supper with his disciples, — Jesus, in the silence of mid- 
night, singing the Hallel, the great song of praise to God. 
To those who indulge in too much gayety, Christ is seen 
holding out his crown of thorns to check unseemly mirth. 
But to a man in great despondency, Jesus comes bidding 
him rejoice and be exceeding glad, though in the midst of 
persecutions. 

We are of disproportionate life, and if we fondly cling 
to new graves, and refuse to take up again the burden of 
life, we hear the Son of Man roughly declaring, Let the 
dead bury their dead, follow thou me. Or if we straight- 
way forget the dead, and are cold and unmoved by opening 
tombs, we see our Saviour weeping at the grave of a friend, 
or touching the bier of the only son of a widow. 

We are disproportionate ; and if our souls are cold, and 
turn away from human friendships as of no use, — we see 
Jesus visiting at the house in Bethany, or we behold him 
on the cross, commending his mother to the care of his 
beloved disciple. But if our souls are tangled, and too 
much wed to earthly friendships, we hear a stern voice, 

201 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

demanding that we hate father and mother and all relation- 
ships, and bidding us forsake all to follow him. 

We are disproportionate. Christ then exhibits himself 
as tender or rough to suit our peculiar need. If our souls 
are fearful and trembling, he will quench no smoking flax. 
If our souls are bold and fiery, he appears scourging hypo- 
crites from his temple, and denouncing Sadducee and Phari- 
see. If our souls love peace, Christ is the Prince of Peace. 
But if our souls are valiant for fight, he comes not to the 
earth to bring peace, but a sword. If any man asks Jesus 
about his kingship over the nations, his answer is, My 
Kingdom is not of this world. But if men are spiritless in 
the great exigencies of life, we hear the same voice com- 
manding, If any man have not a sword let him sell his 
garment and buy one. To those who are fevered and 
impatient in his service, Jesus appears, saying, Sleep on 
now and take your rest. But if any are drowsy in hours of 
peril, we hear the Saviour questioning, "What, could ye not 
watch with me one hour ? 

Is one too dependent on others ? The Messiah is seen 
treading the wine press alone. Is a man lonely in warfare 
with evil powers ? The Son of Man appears, declaring that 
twelve legions of angels are in waiting. If a man is legal, 
and clings to the old Mosaic economy and the traditions of 
men, Jesus stands before him, rejecting the letter of the law 
and overturning old ceremonies. But if the man is of a 
careless order of mind, and would riot in unholy liberty, 
Christ is discovered, declaring that not one jot or tittle of 
that stern law shall fail. When Jesus saw men careless of 

202 



THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. 

the law, he bade them do as they — vile Pharisee and vain 
Sadducee — commanded, for they were in Moses' seat : — 
" Whosoever shall break one of these least command- 
ments, and teach men so, shall be least in the kingdom of 
heaven." Yet Jesus plucked corn on the Sabbath, and 
bade men beware of the leaven of Pharisee and Sadducee ; 
and he purified the temple of Jehovah, after men had de- 
filed it under the sanction of revered teachers. 

Were any disposed to render to earthly governments the 
praise that was justly his due, Jesus bade them never to 
deny him when brought before governors and kings. But 
if any gave not honor to those in rule over them, Jesus 
commanded them to render to Csesar the things that are 
Csesars. 

" See that thou say nothing to any man," said Jesus ; 
" neither go into the town nor tell it in the town :" — this, 
when men were naturally too bold, or the Kingdom needed 
prudent heralds. Again, he turned on a man who would 
quietly follow him with a dumb tongue, and commanded 
him to leave his company, and go everywhere proclaiming 
how great things the Lord had done for him. 

If any were full of light and careless talk, Jesus would 
remind them that they must give account for every word 
in the Day of Judgment. But some, who were slow of 
speech, were so quickened by contact with him, that they 
filled the world with the fame of Jesus, and were prepared 
to sit down at his right hand in the last dread Day. 

To men of timid mind, Christ taught the most invigorat- 
ing and terrible doctrines. To those of uncompromising, 

203 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

severe, and cold intellects, Jesus showed how he could die 
for his enemies. 

Thus the whole human race find their most profound 
wants met in Jesus, and the character of every man may 
be rounded to perfection through the modifying friendship 
of Christ. 

Jesus, then, is the Friend we most need, to modify and 
shape us ; we, complaining so much, and having so much 
to complain of, in ourselves, — with disproportionate lives 
moved by divers passions, — we need the molding hand of 
Christ upon us. 

In this very hour, the Saviour of men is waiting by the 
wayside, and he is ready to enter into conversation with us ; 
and if we will go to him, and confide in him, he will open 
to us a fountain of living water. And the very words of 
Jesus will be fulfilled in us, — " Whosoever drinketh of the 
water that I shall give him shall never thirst." 



204 



CHAPTER TWO. 

His Manner in Attracting 
Attention. 

^s^^s> 

VEN if it is difficult, among the words of Jesus, to 
find formal discourses and call them sermons, it is 
plain enough from the Gospel text, that the 
conversational proclamation of the truth in three tours 
about Galilee were called preaching services ; and it is 
not unlikely that our Lord at times addressed the mul- 
titudes at some length, even if informally, upon other 
occasions than that of the Sermon on the Mount, which is 
the only public discourse reported that modern usage would 
designate as a sermon.* If we cannot therefore speak of 
the manner or action of Jesus as a preacher in any modern 
sense, we may suitably ask what the Gospels say of his 
manner or action in securing attention to the truth and 
enforcing his words. 

TTjN illustration of the manner of Jesus is found in an in- 
* V^, cident that occurred at the beginning of Passion 
Week. It is said that Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and 

*The words of Jesus to his disciples at the institution of the Lord's 
supper were of the nature of a farewell address privately uttered. 

[Book v.] 205 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

into the temple : and when he had looked round about upon 
all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out 
unto Bethany with the Twelve. It was near the close of 
the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the day 
before the second cleansing of the temple. When he came 
into Jerusalem all the city was moved, saying: "Who is 
this?" And the shouting multitude answered: "This is 
Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth." According to Matthew, 
the blind and the lame then came to Jesus in the temple, 
and he healed them. And the Levite chorister boys in the 
temple sang : " Hosanna to the Son of David." As it came 
near nightfall, the songs ceased, and the prophet of Galilee 
ceased from works of mercy ; and he surveyed in silence 
the temple, with searching eyes looking about upon the 
den of thieves, upon the traders in sacrifices, and upon the 
money changers, as if wondering that the lesson he had 
taught them once before was now forgotten, and medita- 
ting on his repetition of the lesson on the morrow. In that 
solemn eventide his external appearance so impressed the 
people, that Mark, in gathering up the story of that day, 
forgot all about the songs of the children and the miracles 
of healing, as if the only incident of the day, after the 
triumphant entry, was the silent walk of Jesus about the 
holy house, with unspeakable dignity in his mien, and with 
eyes which probed the consciences of the guilty men who 
had dishonored the temple of the living God. He had 
entered the city like a king in triumph, and there was 
something regal in his bearing as Jesus seemed to fill the 
Father's house with a presence which drew men's eyes off 

206 



THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. 

all else ; as if they beheld the glory of the only begotten 
Son of God. 

The very presence of Jesus seemed at times to glow with 
supernatural power, producing effects so astonishing that 
some writers have spoken of this as if it were miraculous. 
While we need not resort to such a theory to account for 
the marvelous results, we may admire that air of ineffable 
authority and justice and might which was manifest when 
the Son of Mary gathered up a handful of the rushes that 
were used for bedding the cattle on the floor of the temple 
courts, and made a scourge, and then by word and act 
scattered the oxen and owners, the doves and the brokers, 
from the house of Jehovah, — which they had no right to 
invade with their unholy and unclean traffic. The moral 
sense of the sinners themselves and of the gathered multi- 
tudes applauded the deed ; and the appearance of the 
prophet of Nazareth somehow enforced his claims to bear 
rule in that hour. 

Did not John say of the glorified Son of Man that his 
eyes were as a flame of fire, and that his countenance was 
as the sun shining in his strength ? When therefore those 
who came to apprehend Jesus in the hour of betrayal fell 
to the ground, they may have seen in his face and bearing 
an exhibition of the true character of the man Christ Jesus, 
the Incarnate Jehovah.* 

* ' < He of whom John bore witness as the Christ ; he whom the mul- 
titude would gladly have seized, that he might be their king ; he whom 
the city saluted with triumphant shouts as the Son of David ; he to whom 
women miuistered with such deep devotion, and whose aspect, even in the 

207 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

It seems clear from such incidents in the life of the 
Saviour that there was something in the manner of the 
man which drew attention to himself. And we may 
therefore well believe that in his ordinary work, as a 
prophetic Teacher and Preacher, he spoke with authority 
and not as the scribes. 

A singular story is recorded in the tenth chapter of John, 
when the Jewish mob took up stones, to stone Jesus. Even 
as their hands were raised, they were arrested by some- 
thing in the bearing of Christ, as he turned upon them, 
ironically asking them for which of his good works they 
were about to - stone him. And for the moment he held 
them, till he finished his talk, and then escaped. This tact, 
this dignified and emphatic demeanor, this ability to quell 
a mob by the eye and voice, was one of the characteristics 
of Christ's power as a public teacher and preacher. 

IF we inquire into what is called the manner of Jesus as a 
mere rhetorician, the action as distinguished from the 
voice, we find him making great use of the eye ; " looking 

troubled images of a dream, had inspired a Roman lady with interest and 
awe ; he whose mere word caused Philip and Matthew and many others* 
to leave all, and follow him ; he whose one glance broke into an agony of 
repentance the heart of Peter ; he before whose presence those possessed 
with devils were alternately agitated into frenzy or calmed into repose, and 
at whose question, in the very crisis of his weakness and betrayal, his 
most savage enemies shrank and fell prostrate in the moment of their 
most infuriated wrath, — such an one as this could not have been without 
the personal majesty of a prophet and a priest." — Dean F. W. Farrar, 
Life of Christ 

"It is plain," says Keim, "that his was a manly, commanding, 
prophetic figure." 

208 



THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. 

round about," as once in the temple. When the rich young 
man went away grieved, it is said that Jesus "looked 
round about," and having drawn all eyes to himself he said, 
"How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of God." And in the story preceding, it is par- 
ticularly noticed that Jesus fastened his penetrating, loving 
eyes upon the young man, " beholding him." 

So when Peter, upon one occasion, took Jesus and began 
to rebuke him, saying, "Be it far from thee, Lord: this 
shall not be unto thee," — it is said that there was an em- 
phatic pause, as well there might be when a man upon the 
earth would take it in hand to rebuke the Lord's Anointed ; 
and the eyes of the Saviour were fixed on the disciples, 
securing their attention to a rebuke they would be likely to 
remember. " But when he had turned about," it is said, 
"and looked on his disciples," he rebuked Peter. This 
was purely rhetorical ; he might have said it to Peter, with- 
out dramatic action. This " looking round about" made a 
great impression upon Peter, who was Mark's mentor in 
preparing his Gospel ; and it is in Mark alone (save one in- 
stance in Luke) that we find reference to this trait in the 
manner of Christ as a teacher. Peter remembered the eye 
of Jesus, which was fastened upon him in the judgment 
hall, when the disciple denied his Master. 

So, too, in that memorable instance, in which Jesus said 
that his .disciples and all who did the divine will were next 
of kin to him, he first " looked round about " to give the 
greater emphasis to what he was about to say. 

Such instances lead us to believe that what may be 

209 14 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

called the st action " of Jesus the preacher, was remarkably 
well adapted to secure attention to the truth, and to enforce 
his words. And it seems likely that his elocution was 
equally striking. One so thoughtful of his manner must 
have been mindful of tones and modulations appropriate to 
his words. Was there not a winning, convincing voice, as 
well as matchless phraseology, that led to the affirmation, 
" Never man spake as this man " ? We get little idea of 
the power of Demosthenes, and of the great orators whose 
fame has comedown to us through the ages, from the words 
reported to us. We get little idea of the popular influence 
of Jesus as a preacher, from his reported words. 



JESUS' habit of emphatically drawing attention to what 
I he was about to say or do, appears in some of his 
miracles. For example, when the sick of the palsy was 
let down through the roof, Jesus merely said, " Thy sins are 
forgiven thee : " — as if the sick man was more grieved for 
his sins than for his palsy. And then the Master waited, to 
give time for the scribes and the Pharisees to turn over 
these words a little ; and when they began to say in their 
hearts that Jesus was blaspheming, in presuming to forgive 
sins, he again took up his work. " That ye may know 
that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I 
say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed." And imme- 
diately he arose ; and departed, glorifying God. The 
miracle was thus made to say, "Jesus, having power to 
heal the sick, is, also, clothed with authority to forgive 

210 



THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. 

sins." This was the great lesson and object of the miracle : 
one was healed, but multitudes have been forgiven. 

Then, too, take the case of healing the withered hand 
on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees, referring to a former 
miracle on the Sabbath, had asked Jesus whether it was 
lawful to heal on that day ; and Jesus, at first, appeared 
not to notice their question. But they watched him, it is 
said. There was something in his manner which kept their 
eyes. on him, and he knew their thoughts. 

There is something very dramatic about the healing 
which then took place. Jesus said to the man which had the 
withered hand, "Rise up, and stand forth in the midst." 
And then, as he stood, Jesus questioned the Pharisees — and 
this was his true answer to their former question, — " I will 
ask you one thing : — Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do 
good, or to do evil ? To save life, or to destroy it ? " There 
was then a pause, and his enemies, on their part, did not 
answer a word. Then Jesus began again to question 
them, — " What man shall there be among you, that shall 
have one sheep, and if it fall into the pit on the Sabbath 
day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? How much, 
then, is a man (this man) better than a sheep ? Wherefore 
it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days." And then, it 
is said, there was another long silence, in which the Saviour 
" looked round about on them all with anger, being grieved 
for the hardness of their hearts." Then unto the man, who 
had been standing there all this while as the text for a 
sermon to the Pharisees on Sabbath keeping, Jesus said, 
"Stretch forth thine hand." And the Pharisees were filled 

211 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

with madness at this strange logic ; and they went out, and 
plotted to kill him. They could not stand those searching 
eyes, and that emphatic dramatic rebuke of their false 
notions of the Sabbath, and of their cumbersome tradition 
concerning the ceremonial law, and of their malicious 
hatred of the Messiah. 

It was the manner, the emphasis, of Jesus' preaching, 
which made it such a power in bringing men to a decision 
for or against himself. 

Jesus, moreover, in giving instruction, not only used his 
miracles for emphasizing his words, but they were some- 
times made the very occasion of peculiarly fitting words, as 
if their main design was for a sort of object teaching. 
Take for example the sixth chapter of John. The feeding 
of five thousand was followed next day, when everybody 
was talking about the miracle, by a weighty discourse on 
the Bread which cometh down from heaven, as if the 
earthly might lead to apprehend the heavenly. 

IT is related that upon one occasion, Napoleon told an 
ambassador, that if his sovereign did not do so and so, 
the French armies would dash the Austrian power into a 
thousand pieces. And as he said it, he struck with sharp 
blow a beautiful vase upon the desk by which they were 
standing, and shivered it upon the marble floor ; just so 
would he break the Austrian empire. The use of symbols 
for enforcing the words spoken, was common with the 
prophets of Israel ; horns, yokes, girdles, broken bottles, 
were used : and the prophet of Nazareth plied like instru- 

212 



THE MANNER OP CHRIST AS A PREACHER. 

ments in his teaching". The curse upon the barren fig tree 
is an example, — a curse on profession without possession, 
a symbol of Israel. 

Look for a moment at another illustration of the unique 
style of teaching which Jesus adopted. While it can hardly 
be called object teaching, it has in it the use of a symbol, 
and also much of the dramatic element. 

One day after the Saviour had been beset by Sadducee 
and Pharisee, he thought to Avarn his disciples against their 
teachings ; but he did not say it out straight, as most of us 
would have done. He knew that when they left the wicked 
and adulterous disputants, and entered into a ship to go 
over the lake, the disciples had forgotten to provision their 
vessel, and had with them only one loaf of bread ; and he 
waited, therefore, till, tossing on the uneasy waves, they 
were getting hungry, — when he abruptly said, " Take heed, 
and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and, of the Sad- 
ducees, and of the leaven of Herod." 

And then he was silent ; as if he was waiting for his words 
to work in their minds, like leaven in meal. And they, it 
seems, went to talking about it among themselves, wonder- 
ing what he meant. And finally, when they — first rum- 
maging among their luggage — missed their bread, they 
came to the sage conclusion that he was warning them 
against getting anything edible of bakers, Pharisaic and 
Sadducean. It just accorded with the spirit of that age, — 
if they did not like a man's doctrine they would not trade 
with him. 

They said, " It is because we have taken no bread." 

213 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Ancl then, after a little, Jesus reminded them that they 
need not feel troubled about bread, so long as he was with 
them. 

" ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, 
because ye have brought no bread ? When I brake the five 
loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of 
fragments took ye up ? " 

They said unto him, "Twelve." 

" And when the seven loaves among the four thousand, 
how many baskets full of fragments took ye up ? " 

And they said, " Seven." 

And he said unto them, " How is it that ye do not 
understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, 
that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of 
the Sadducees ? " 

"Then understood they," says the story, "how that he 
bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the 
doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." 

He did not tell them plainly that he meant doctrine, 
though he did say that he did not mean bread. And they 
got it through their skulls at last, that it was a figure of 
speech he was using ; and when it got through, it stuck 
fast. The rough fishermen never forgot it. They steered 
wide of Pharisaic and Sadducean doctrine after that. 
But we do not read that Jesus multiplied their one loaf to 
satisfy their well whetted appetites. He went hungry, and 
allowed them to do so, — save as they lunched on this pre- 
cious morsel of wisdom, to give dangerous doctrine a wide 
berth. 

214 



THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. 

Now this was a little drama, taking considerable time 
for its unfolding. Perhaps Jesus thought of it when 
they were passing over in the ship, — just how he should 
teach this lesson the most effectively. Most of us would 
have merely spent the time going over, in petulantly scold- 
ing about the Sadducees and the Pharisees ; and telling the 
disciples in round terms to look out for their doctrines, — 
for they were bad heretics. Certainly the course the 
Saviour took was the more dignified and impressive ; and 
the lesson stands out on the Gospel page to-day, attracting 
us to it by its unique presentation, and we ourselves are 
careful to "beware" as did those who first heard it. 



WHEN upon one occasion our Lord omitted the cere- 
monial washing before eating, and so violated the 
usage of good society, it was to draw attention, and to 
give emphasis to the rebuke he was about to administer 
to those, who, though pure in their own eyes, were not 
washed of their filthiness. 

And when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, his 
deed gave weight to his affectionate command that they 
should have the same spirit which actuated him. A medi- 
aeval exposition renders it thus : — 

" I will not serve the Creator," says man. " Then I," 
saith the Creator, " will serve thee, O man. Do thou sit at 
the banquet ; I will minister to thee, and I will wash thy 
feet. Do thou rest ; I will bear thy sicknesses, I will carry 
thine infirmities." 

215 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Jesus did not need to speak many sermons, since he 
acted so many. Indeed his whole life was such as to add 
emphasis to every word he uttered. So thoroughly did his 
example enforce his precepts, it has been justly said that 
" Christ came not to speak the Gospel, but to be the 
Gospel."* When Jesus said, "Follow thou me," men were 
invited to imitate one, who though he was rich yet for the 
sake of men became poor, that they through his poverty 
might become rich. By the life of self-sacrifice, by the 
laying down of life itself, he spoke to the human race, 
declaring the hatefulness of sin, and manifesting the love 
of God. This example is never worn out, it is a story the 
race will hear with new wonder age after age : — " God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have 
everlasting life." 

*Alex. McLaren, D.D. 




216 



CHAPTER THREE. 

His Rhetorical Power. 

(JY'T was remarked by the late President McCosh of 
Princeton, that "Plato and the Greek philosophers 
spoke and wrote only for the educated, and never 
thought of addressing the great mass of the people, 
who were in fact despised by them ; but of Jesus it was said 
that the common people heard him gladly : this constituted 
a new era."* 

Among two millions of people, Jesus made three preach- 
ing tours, going from village to village, besides the instruc- 
tion he gave outside of Galilee. " The time is fulfilled, and 
the Kingdom of God is at hand," — this was his message ; 
"repent ye, and believe the Gospel." When he saw the 
multitudes, he was moved with compassion, because they 
fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no 
shepherd. The Holy Land was full of synagogues, yet the 
truth was not adapted to the people by the rabbis ; who dis- 
cussed trifling nicety of forms, and captious questions. The 
common people heard Jesus gladly, and the hearts of the 
poor thrilled with new hopes, and high and holy aspirations. 

* Christianity and Positivism. Compare p. 279. JSTew York, 1871. 
[Book v.] 217 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

THE prophet of Nazareth appealed to the Scriptures, to 
the Divine authority, and to the human conscience ; 
but everything was informal, — nothing more sermon- 
like than his farewell discourse to his disciples, or his 
words upon the Mount. He presented no dry and argumen- 
tative processes of reasoning. His plain and simple words 
were easily understood. And he was skilled in gaining the 
people's attention. 

He put the truth into such shape as to suit the story 
loving, story telling Orient. He made a single parable 
more effective than many a book full of our modern the- 
ology or sermonizing. His brief and pointed lessons have 
passed into the proverbs of the nations. The world can 
never forget the wonderful story of the love of God as it is 
expressed in the words we often use, — "the returning 
prodigal." Seeing a man going forth to sow, — since the 
man did not become one of our Lord's hearers, — Jesus 
straightway seized on him, and made him a text for his 
sermon ; nor will the story ever pass from the memory 
of mankind. The everyday similes of our Saviour have 
obtained such hold on the common mind that their very 
titles seem to suggest infinite riches of wisdom and knowl- 
edge. The Pearl and the Hid Treasure, the Leaven, the 
Tares, the Unmerciful Servant, the Wicked Husbandmen, 
the Marriage of the King's Son, the Talents, the Ten Vir- 
gins, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, Dives and Laz- 
arus, the Lost Sheep, the Unjust Judge : — these are the 
words we prize more thari the great libraries of the world. 

218 



THE RHETORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. 

/'YESUS made a great deal of use of familiar objects to 
illustrate his instructions. Grass blades and wheat 



J 



fields, fig trees, and miles of yellow mustard trees 
along the lake shore or stretching far over hills and plains, 
became his preachers. He looked out on regions clad in 
living green, and then as the scorching south wind swept 
over the country for a day or two, turning every living 
thing into the color of ashes, he spoke of that grass which 
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven. Jesus had 
watched the reeds by the brookside, shaking in the wind. 
" The birds of heaven, and the lilies of the field," says 
Lange, "become, through him, the thoughts of God." He 
spoke of God's care of the birds ; he noticed their nesting. 
He alluded to the fowls of the air, and the harmless doves 
upon the flat roofs of Nazareth. The color of the evening 
sky appeared in his discourse, the rising of shower clouds, 
and the lightning from east to west as he had seen it on the 
hills of Galilee, — these illustrated the points he made. The 
grapevine is constantly appearing and reappearing.* 

Mr. Beecher, in his comments upon the Life of Christ, 
has called our attention to the fact that in his comparisons, 
Jesus did not make use of nature wild, so much as nature 
cultivated : " There are in the Gospel narratives no waves, 
storms, lions, eagles, mountains, forests, plains." "It was 
the city set upon a hill that our Lord selected, not the hill 



* It is not needful to suppose that John xv was spoken near the vine- 
yards in the valley ; it might have been suggested by the cup at the Lord 's 
Table. 

219 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

itself, or a mountain ; vines and fig trees, but not the cedars 
of Lebanon, nor oaks." "Human occupations furnish the 
staple of his parables and illustrations." "The plow, the 
yoke, the seed-sowing, the harvest-field, flocks of sheep, bar- 
gains, coins, magistrates^ courts of justice, domestic scenes, 
— these are the preferred images of our Saviour's discourses." 

While our Lord was greatly moved by the beauty of the 
earth, he drew men's attention only to the homely facts of 
the daily life, — if by them he might make an entrance for 
the truth. He watched the shepherds, till he was certain 
that it was the voice of the Master which led the sheep to 
obey him, and "that no change of dress could cheat the wise 
flocks ; living speech being the index of the soul, while robes 
and ornaments may be shifted every hour. Fishers and fish 
nets preached for him, and laborers debating over their 
wages ; and he knew the time for the reapers to go forth. 
As a young mechanic at Nazareth, he had seen excavations 
made, sometimes thirty feet below the surface, to reach the 
underlying ledge, and then arches built up to the super- 
structure ; and when he spoke of that which he had seen, 
some house that was not founded on a rock', swept away by 
a sudden rain pouring in torrents down a hillside, all the 
ages hearkened to his words, and " a house on the sand " is 
a phrase in the mouth of every one. 

Not Socrates himself, who was forever talking about 
some craftsman, placed so great honor as did Jesus upon 
the everyday activities. He remembered the housewife's 
broom ; and the search for some small coin, in the ordinary 
dark house, without a window. He knew about leaven, and 

220 



THE RHETORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. 

at the morning hour he had watched the women with their 
bread ready for the baking, going forth to the public ovens 
outside his home in Nazareth. He noted in memory the ill 
judgment of men who put new wine in old goatskin bottles. 
And either in the house of Mary his mother, or in the house 
of the careful Martha, he saw that it was bad economy to 
patch old garments with new cloth, and he straightway put 
that homely illustration into one of his sermons ; and the 
poor of the earth, and good housewives — the uncounted 
multitudes who have had to mend old clothes, and withal to 
mend their soul's garments, — have always remembered it. 

Nor did Jesus fail to utilize his observation of the 
amusements of little children, and turn the illustration 
against chronic fault-finders. Feasting and music and 
dancing were introduced as rhetorical embellishments of 
the most serious of his parables, 

His illustrations throughout give the impression that 
Jesus had a genial and a human interest in all human af- 
fairs ; and this gave him favor with the multitude. 

^J TIS popularity as a preacher and teacher was enhanced 

l\ by resources so varied, that he was without a match, 

"" in points quite outside of his miraculous power. 

He not only grounded his instructions upon the Holy 

Scriptures, which were known and accepted by all ; he not 

only took texts out of the history of his people, as when he 

talked about manna at Capernaum, where the very carving 

over the door of the synagogue suggested it ; — but he was 

so familiar with the Old Testament history and poetry that 

221 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he always had an answer at hand -for his adversaries, and 
he had the tact to use his information in a telling way. 

He was moreover so well versed in the whole category of 
principles which underlie universal human conduct, that he 
could instantly solve difficult questions by announcing some 
general rule, that would obviously apply in all ages, settling 
the matter definitely and forever. 

As a master in logic, singularly skillful in irony when 
occasion required it, he yet exercised a studied calmness of 
utterance, and rarely used invective. 

He had the rare art of combining what appeared to be 
informal or colloquial statement, and exactness of phrase- 
ology ; as if he had thought out every conceivable topic,— 
through and through, — and could in a flash give an expres- 
sion of his thought that would require no mending at any 
subsequent age of the intellectual progress of mankind.* 
" Every sentence which he utters," says Dr. Thomas Armi- 
tage, " is a masterpiece of uniqueness, as well in its litera- 
ture, as in its philosophy and spirituality. There is nothing 
ill-balanced or embarrassed, feverish or disjointed, in his 
conversation and discourses. He is ever tranquil, measured, 
exact, pungent, and self-possessed." 

Then, too, while his sayings are notable for their power 
in understatement, he was apt at judicious exaggeration, 
when by it he might fix things in memory, and stimulate 



* Pascal noticed this : " Jesus has said tilings so simply, that it seems 
that he has not thought of them ; and so precisely, that we see clearly 
what he thought of them." 

222 



THE RHETORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. 

inquiry. And sometimes, for like reason, his words were 
riddles for subsequent solving. He caught at the proverbs 
of the people, and when he said that those who gained power 
with God in prayer could plant trees in the sea and move 
mountains, he meant just what the common people meant 
when they expressed the might of their teachers by saying 
of a favorite rabbi, — he plucked up mountains by their 
roots to-day. By sayings short, sharp, and personal he made 
new apothegms, and led men to turn about quickly in their 
spiritual career, to act for or against him. The sayings of 
Jesus were well adapted to a keen proverb-making people, 
and his words have gone out to the ends of the world. His 
words are eminently quotable ; making complete sense in 
snugly put, portable phrases, adapted to pass from one to 
another like coin of the realm. 

To crown all : in respect to longevity of influence, looked 
upon solely as a rhetorical merit, all the wisdom of Jesus, — 
appealing as it does to all mankind, and so attractive, per- 
tinent, and usable, — is so compact that every man can 
carry it in his vest pocket ; all the recorded words of Jesus, 
prior to his ascension, being not more than, say, one fifth 
longer than a single oration of Demosthenes.* 



*De Corona. The words of Jesus are to this oration as thirty-six to 
twenty-nine. 

N. B. — The topic of Jesus as a preacher and teacher is presented more fully 
on page 575, in an Article by Professor W. C. Wilkinson of Chicago 

University 



223 



BOOK SIX. 



~-»£5-*-C^«- 



Our Teacher. 

+*>&**• — 

Chapter 1. Page 225. 

The Master and His Pupils 

Chapter 2. Page 238. 

His Originality in Thought. 

Chapter 3. Page 242. 

His Self=Assertion. 

Chapter 4. Page 252. 

A. Kingdom, to Establish. 

Chapter 5. Page 269. 

His Gentleness and Severity 

Chapter 6. Page 279. 

The World's Great Teacher 



CHAPTER ONE. 

The M aster and His Pmpils. 

^Hl'^ 

(^ HE pastoral work of the Saviour leads us to think of 
4 what he did in training others to become pastors 

~-L and teachers of the new dispensation ; a work car- 
ried on mainly by conversations, and by the example of 
Jesus. 

The students of the Pastoral College were selected to be 
eye and ear witnesses of the life and resurrection of our 
Lord. They were fishermen, — patient, careful, skilled, pru- 
dent, cunning to catch and to cure, versed in curious lore, 
able to adapt themselves to the intricate necessities of their 
business, bold and ready for enterprise in all weathers, men 
willing to toil all night ; men ever busy, mending their nets 
when not fishing ; men of wit to live, watching the markets. 
We have left all, quoth Peter. He had nothing to leave but 
a boat and a net. 

The fish, the ship running before the wind, or a ship's 
anchor, were favorite symbols in the early church, engraved 
upon gems, or worn as talismans. And they sang songs in 
which Jesus is set forth as the Divine Fisherman : — 
[bookvi.j 225 15 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" Fisher of men, the Blest : 
Out of the world's unrest, 
Out of sin's troubled sea, — 
Taking us, Lord, to Thee." 

— Clement op Alexandria. 

"The Magi," says Bengel, "were led by a star; the 
fishermen by fishes to Christ." It was the miraculous 
draught that filled their nets, that led Peter to an emphatic 
acknowledgment of the divine power manifested by Jesus. 
The apostle might have become an opulent fish dealer, and a 
local religious leader noted for a certain rude eloquence of 
speech : but when he let his lines go, and let go of such 
ecclesiastical prejudices as were already fastening upon 
him like barnacles, and when he followed Jesus, — he became 
one of the foremost powers upon this globe.* 

The zeal and leadership of Peter ; the ambition and 
native force of James, the son of Zebedee ; the philosophic 
head, the loving heart, of the robust and manly John, — and 
his fiery temper brought under wise control ; the doubt- 
ing and enthusiastic nature of Thomas ; the eagerness to 
lead men to Christ which characterized the simple and 

*" We find, in tracing Peter's career, that his zeal was mixed with 
many inconsistencies. Inconstancy compromised his ardor ; temper lurked 
in close alliance with his impetuosity ; and violence of speech was a morti- 
fying appendage to his vehemence. But Christ saw that he had in him the 
noble material of a vital and victorious apostleship, and it is most inter- 
esting for us to see how the benignant spirit of the new faith worked upon 
him, till it finally purged out the old, bitter leaven, refashioned him into 
a self-commanding as well as an eager champion, and at last made him 
first and foremost of the twelve companions of his Lord." — Bishop 
Huntington. 

226 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

plodding mind of Philip,— Philip sought out by Jesus and 
first called of all that company ; the guileless life of Bar- 
tholomew * ; the rigid morality of James the Just ; the 
practical talent of Matthew ; the nameless virtues of Simon 
Zelotes, and of Jude,f and of that strongman Andrew, 
always one of the four leaders in that band of twelve ; and 
even the economical turn of Judas Iscariot, carrier of the 
bag, — were all needed to complete the College of the 
Apostles. The full eyes of Jesus read these men, and com- 
prehended at once the use they would be to him, and of 
what use he could be to them. 

This, indeed, is a wonderful story. To say nothing of the 
spiritual relations which these men sustained to the begin- 
nings of the new religious era, we find that out of some 
thousands of Galilean fisherfolk a little handful of obscure 
men became the followers of our Lord, — and in virtue of it, 
their names in after ages headed the list of the world's 
great men ; they came, indeed, to be designated as patrons of 
princely merchants, warriors, and kings ; cathedrals were 
called after them, and churches among all races of men ; 
and their names were placed upon geographical landmarks 
in every quarter of the globe. A single one of these men, 
who went, it is said, upon a mission to the Scythians, is now 
the patron saint of one-sixth of the entire land surface upon 
this planet. Whether or not St. Philip, in his youth, had 
been a chariot driver, whether St. Bartholomew had been a 
gardener, whether St. John had been more often rebuked 

* Nathaniel, f Lebbseus, the stout hearted. 

227 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

by Jesus than any other except Peter, — it all matters not ; 
their names were set apart to be honored during all ages. 

Trie Itinerancy. 

THE most that the disciples learned from the Master was 
acquired in a life of ceaseless wandering, — the peri- 
patetic school of a divine philosophy. 

When the peculiar mission of John the Baptist was 
ended, Jesus began to preach, and to call for followers, and 
to organize his Kingdom among men. He did not, like John, 
seek for louely wastes, but he was oft in the crowded cities 
and densely peopled villages. His progress through the 
country was heralded by wonderful works, that called the 
multitudes together to hear his wonderful words.* 

A retinue of the wretched sought him by rugged paths, 
as he walked hither and thither, — perhaps in the winter 
when snow was falling like wool, or the hoar frost was 
scattered, or when the ice and cold possessed the land. 
The robin redbreasts, the lark, and the nightingale, were 
acquainted with all his ways ; the swallows, too, the spar- 
rows, and the willow wren. And Jesus, a little in advance 



* These preaching tours made a great impression upon the mind of 
Humbert de Romanis, General of the Order of the Dominicans, in the 
thirteenth century : — 

" Christ," he says, "celebrated the mass (the Lord's supper) but once ; 
heard no confessions ; seldom administered the sacraments ; did not em- 
ploy himself much in the liturgical adoration of God ; but he was con- 
st an tly engaged in prayer and preaching. Indeed, after he had once 
commenced preaching, he spent his whole life in that employment, much 
more than in prayer." 

228 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

of his company, sometimes saw the foxes hastening to their 
holes, when he himself had no place for repose. 

He in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge often entered into the synagogue, * or he taught 
by the side of the sea, or upon a hilltop, or upon the street, 
or in the open court of some private house. Rembrandt 
pictures our Saviour as standing upon a millstone preaching 
to the people, — to an unhappy woman, to a wretch con- 
victed of guilt by his own conscience, to a mother and child, 
to an old man, to a group seated upon a bench near by, to 
unbelievers and critics. 

In great part, these homilies were never reported f • yet 

* There were four hundred and eighty synagogues in Jerusalem. The 
synagogues throughout the country were open daily for morning worship, 
and for a continuous afternoon and evening service. The most devout 
Jews were in frequent attendance. Then, too, the second and the fifth 
days in the week were observed as such seasons of special worship as to 
call in the country people. It was therefore always easy for Jesus to find 
people ready to hear his words. 

f See, for example, Mark i : 21,38,39 ; and ii : 2,13 ; and vi : 2,34 ; and 
Luke v : 3. These unrecorded sayings of Jesus must have entered into the 
speech of the times and the traditions of the early Christian generations. 
One such saying is quoted in Acts xx : 35 : " Remember the words of the 
Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Do we sometimes regret the loss of those precious words, and try to 
imagine with what parables and pithy sentences the vacancy may be filled? 
But we are like the men who could not with the wealth of a kingdom 
finish one window which the genii had left incomplete when they built a 
palace. 

Yet our Saviour affirmed, "In secret have 1^ said nothing." His 
words that we now have, contain the germs of all we need ; like grains of 
celestial wheat, to satisfy the whole world with that bread which cometh 
down from heaven. 

229 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

we know that he everywhere proclaimed those principles 
which should underlie the everyday life of those who would 
live as the sons and the daughters of the Almighty. 

And every day, whether walking between the cactus 
hedges, or plucking the grain that crowded the path, the 
Master was tutoring his learners: "Why are ye so fool- 
ish?" "Do ye not understand ?" "Know ye not this 
parable ? " " Have I been so long with you, and yet thou 
hast not known me ?" Sincere, faithful, and impartial 
was the Master ; nor did he foster their pride and lack of 
reason. 

So affectionate was the Son of Man that his disciples 
dared be familiar with him in some moods, — so much so as 
to tempt him with evil suggestions. So Peter in his carnal 
weakness once took Jesus to task, and began to rebuke him 
for not doing as his disciples wanted to have him do. 

Sometimes, however, Jesus bore a forebidding aspect, or 
manifested a certain divine dignity of bearing, which kept 
men from venturing too near ; so fending off familiarity 
and needless questioning, that at times no man durst ask 
him further questions. So came the disciples to know that 
there was a distance which could not be bridged by words, 
between them and their Lord. As a Teacher, his sayings 
now manifested unspeakable tenderness, then sharp sever- 
ity; so he timed his words to the needs of those who followed 
him. 

The main secret of the influence of Jesus over his disci- 
ples was in the fact that they found in him, 



230 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

Not a Doctrine to be Believed, 

BUT A PERSON TO BE LOVED. 

THEY believed his doctrine by first loving his character. 
They loved his character by being first drawn by his 
personal love to them ; a love which they learned to 
look upon as divine, — as God's love : "In this was mani- 
fested the love of God toward us," said the apostle John, 
" because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, 
that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that 
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son." 

Love is the universal solvent. Having drawn men to 
himself, Jesus fastened them to himself by the cords of 
love. And then he introduced the truth into their minds a 
little at a time. Not otherwise could he have handled those 
young men, some of whom were so rash, and others of 
doubting disposition, and all slow of heart. 

.His warm pergonal affection appeared in his desire to 
have three disciples near him when he was in bitter sorrow ; 
and when he encouraged one to repose his head upon the 
bosom of his Lord. He was tender, sympathetic, charitable, 
and patient ; nor was he " ashamed " to call them brethren, 
although they were ignorant, and selfish and cowardly. 
Did he not affirm that they had kept his word, when they 
had merely tried to keep it ; and that he was glorified in 
them, when his glory was but imperfectly reflected ? He 
accepted the will for the deed, and he knew that they de- 
sired to glorify him. He upbraided them not because they 

231 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

forsook him and fled, but because of their unbelief in his 
resurrection. Ought they not to have expected it ? 

We shrink from trenching upon the personality of 
another, — from so much as touching his person ; only among 
intimate friends is there more freedom. It was a token of 
great affection that Jesus said to Thomas, "Handle me, 
and see." 

It was this personal love of Jesus Christ that awakened 
a personal love to him, " He first loved us." * 

The disciples were attracted to the person of their Mas- 
ter. They believed in him, although they did not compre- 
hend the full scope of his mission. It was not until after 
some years of reflection, and of spiritual enlightenment, 
that the new ideas they obtained from Jesus gained such 
power over their lives that they became Christians, instead 
of being Jews devoted to their Messiah. 

They learned through love, they found the embodiment 
of the truth in Jesus f ; his sublime precepts and simple 
rules of conduct, and the clear theological principles upon 
which they were based, were easily understood, and so prac- 
tical as to be realized in his own life ; he lived perfectly, — 
as if indeed God were the common Father, the God of love, 



* " The hold which Christ has, is chiefly dependent on those personal 
affections and the reverential regard, which souls, that receive Christ, 
entertain towards him." — President Woolsey. 

f "Jesus Christ and his message are so interwoven and interlaced in 
such a fashion, that you cannot get rid of him and keep the message. He 
himself is the truth — Christ is Christianity." — Alexander McLaren, 
D.D. 

232 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

and all men brethren with a golden rule of conduct between 
them. 

Does not the sword of the Spirit require a handle ? Must 
not the truth, sharp, bright, keen-edged, and piercing be 
embodied in somebody's life ? The truth of God was con- 
crete in the life of Jesus. Hence his leadership of the 
twelve, and of all the hosts of the people of God throughout 
the ages. 

This embodiment of the truth in a life has proved to 
have in it a motive-power never found in mere abstrac- 
tions. The consistency of the character of Jesus gave such 
power to his teachings as to quite transfigure the world of 
dogma. In him, we now see that the vital principles of 
truth are related to life, as soul to the body ; the ethical 
truths uttered by Jesus being so set forth in his own life as 
to present the most lovable character known to history. It 
is this which has gained for him the adherence of a great 
variety of personalities, no one of whom has discovered 
anything lacking in the proportion of his attributes. 

Mankind is strongly moved by sympathy, they take to 
truth when bodied in a life. Mankind has great imitative 
powers; a life can be imitated, — while many cannot tell 
beforehand how abstract truth would look in a life. 

The personality of Jesus had its effect upon the twelve 
apostles and the five hundred other disciples of Jesus. 
They were fair representatives of the average man, sym- 
pathetic, imitative ; and the principles of the New Testa- 
ment at once appeared in some hundreds of lives, — and a 
new era was so entered upon. If the Christ-like character 

233 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

has to-day any foothold upon the earth, it is traceable from 
the hundreds of millions back to millions, and from millions 
to thousands, and from thousands to hundreds, and from 
hundreds to the twelve, and to Jesus himself. 

The heroisms of Christendom began in Galilee, in "the 
personal following- of a personal leader." * The moral struc- 
ture of the Kingdom of God in the world to-day, exists 
through the personal imitation in all ages of the character 
of Christ, who is to mankind the very vision of God. The 
personal fascination or personal magnetism of the charac- 
ter of Jesus, is through his manifestation of the positive 
and well proportioned moral character of God, who loved 
us before the foundation of the world. 

To the blunted perceptions and perverted taste of the age 
in which Jesus lived, he was without form or comeliness. A 
few indeed saw the beauty of his holy and self-denying life, 
and called him Master and followed in his footsteps ; and 



* R,t. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D. 
In his sermon on the Living Christ, the Bishop also says of the twelve 
apostles: "These men, living close to Jesns all the time, deep in the 
secrets of his nature and his life, — they needed no miracle to tell them 
what he was. He was their constant miracle." This thought is ampli- 
fied by Professor J. R. Seeley, in Ecce Homo (Compare pp. 176, 177) : 
" Some men have appeared who have been as levers to uplift the earth 
and roll it in another course, — Homer by creating literature, Socrates by 
creating science, Caesar by carrying civilization inland from the shores of 
the Mediterranean, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady 
progress ; but these men gave a single impact, like that which is conceived 
to have first set the planets in motion : Christ claims to be a perpetual at- 
tractive power, like the sun which determines their orbit ; they contributed 
to men some discovery, — Christ's discovery is himself." 

234 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

to their praise will it forever stand on the heavenly record, 
that the Son of God on earth was not utterly unappreciated 
nor utterly misunderstood. No men ever lived who added 
such glory to humanity. The vast and imposing array of 
poets and sages, prophets and kings, throughout the world's 
whole history, have not added such nobleness to our race as 
did the humble friends of the wayfaring Christ, in that 
they were his friends. For that was an age when men 
bound heavy burdens and laid them on other men's 
shoulders ; that self-seeking age would not know a self- 
denying Redeemer. It is the one saving feature of such an 
age, that there were in it a handful of men who dared be 
Christ's disciples. 

The nobility, the grandeur, of the work carried out by 
the apostles is closely connected with the instruction they 
received from the Master ; from his direct tuition in words, 
as well as from his charitable, patient, catholic life.* It is 
expressly stated that the apostles gathered themselves to- 
gether in their peripatetic academy, and told Jesus not 
only what they had done, but what they had taught, f This 
rehearsal, whether it originated with them, or was sug- 
gested by him, indicates the relation of pupils and Master. 
They learned his lessons. However imperfect their learn- 
ing, and imperfect the exhibition of his character in theirs, 
God used these imperfect instruments for working a socio- 
logical revolution in the world ; bringing in an era when 

*Matt.xviii:21,22. Luke ix : 54, 56. John iii : 16,17. Markxvi:15. 
f Mark vi : 30. 

235 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the sick and the sorrowing were to have fair consideration 
in the kingdoms of the world, — of which the devil then 
claimed the ownership, possessed, as the kingdoms were, 
by robust leaders, prosperous, hardhearted, and selfish. 

When Jesus drew men to himself, centered their lives 
upon himself, making himself their Master,* they found not 
only rest in imitating his meekness and lowliness, but his 
yoke so easy as to be related to their spiritual lives as a 
bird's wings are, — a burden indeed, but light and helpful in 
soaring heavenward. \ 

Jesus inspired common men to do uncommon deeds ; the 
weak were made mighty, the cowards bold and ready for 
martyrdom. Men who fled at sight of his cross, readily ran 
to their own crosses. Those who walked with the Nazarene, 
were so filled with the spirit of their Master that men took 
knowledge of them, and knew that they had been with 
Jesus. 

"Follow thou me:" forsaking all, we follow, — to be 
loved by him, disciplined by him, nourished by his teach- 
ings, trained to his service, — calling to our brothers through- 
out the earth, " We have found the Messias." 

"Jesus calls us, o'er the tumult 
Of our life's wild, restless sea ; 
Day by day his sweet voice soundeth, 
Saying, Christian, follow me." 

— Cecil Frances Alexander. 



*Matt. xxiii : 10. 

f Suggested by a simile of St. Bernard. 

236 



THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. 

" Jesus, I my cross have taken, 
All to leave and follow thee ; 
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, — 

Thou, from hence, my all shalt be. 
Perish, every fond ambition, 

All I've sought, or hoped, or known ; 
Yet how ricn is my condition, — 
God and heaven are still my own." 

— Henry Francis Lyte< 



Kollo^?^ Me. 

Comfort those who weep and mourn, 
Heal the wounds by sorrow torn ; 
Walk the path that I have worn, — 
Follow me, follow me. 

Mercy now to all proclaim ; 
Sinful man to save I came : 
Call the guilty in my name, — 
Follow me, follow me. 

Bend with me, on prayerful knee ; 
Bear thy cross, and thou shalt see 
Laurel crown the shameful tree : 
Follow me, follow me. 

Never yet was I alone, 

God in love I've ever known ; 

List and hear, of love the tone,-* 



237 



CHAPTER TWO. 

His Originality in Thought. 
<s*s> 

fF men are divided into two classes, — those who stamp 
their own impress on society, and those who are 
merely molded by society,— then Jesus was the 

most eminent personage who has ever appeared upon 
this globe ; since no one has contributed so much of original 
vital force as he to the formation of new social conditions. 
Various social classes are affected by this or that leader, 
but Jesus reaches every class. 

His unique personality was actuated by powers within, 
calling him, impelling him, to a certain course. He needed 
no prompting or direction from the ecclesiastical authorities 
of his times ; but his divine nature manifestly appointed 
him to his work, — and, in it, he was animated by ideas 
native to his mind. Save in respect to boldness, faithful- 
ness, unselfishness, humility, and in his attitude toward 
moral evil, he had nothing in common with John the Bap- 
tist. He had not the ordinary rabbinical book lore. The 
sages of the far east he knew not, nor the wise Greeks ; and 
the far western paganism had as little to offer him as the 
barbarians of the Orient. He was not a man limited by his 

[book vi.] 238 



THE ORIGINALITY OF JESUS. 

own times, or his own country, His thought was as free, 
as if from heaven. 

The entire substance of his teachings is so familiarly 
known to us, that we think of his maxims as being mere 
truisms ; yet in his own generation they excited the utmost 
astonishment. It is expressly stated, that it was his 
"doctrine," at which they were astonished.* The Sermon 
on the Mount was not apparently more surprising to his 
hearers than the words he uttered upon many other occa- 
sions : "His word was with power," " He taught them as 
one having authority." 

His teaching was wholly religious, f and it was wholly in 
accord with the Scriptures of his people. " To this end was 
I born., and for this cause came I into the world, that I 
should bear witness unto the truth." He seized upon many 
points in the Old Testament, that the scribes and Pharisees 
had missed, or misapprehended ; taking out certain great 
principles of life and faith, and making them the principal 
dogmas of the new dispensation. And in doing this, he 
acted as the Word, the authoritative expression of the Di- 
vine Mind ; so, when compared with the scribes and rabbis, 
he was original and independent, — pouring new light upon 
the ancient ritual and upon the holy hymns of earlier ages. 

One of the ideas which Jesus made prominent was that 

* Matt.,vii : 28, 29. Mark xi : 18 ; and vi : 2. Luke iv : 32. 

f " He never refers to secular history, poetry, rhetoric, mathematics, 
astronomy, foreign languages, natural sciences, or any of those branches 
of knowledge which make up human learning and literature." — Philip 

SCHAFF, D.D. 

239 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

of the Fatherhood of God. There are more than three 
times as many allusions to the Heavenly Father in the 
Sermon on the Mount, than there are in the whole body of 
Hebrew Scriptures ; and the Gospels call God our Father 
more than thirty times as often as the entire Old Testa- 
ment. It was a new era opening to mankind, when God 
appeared under this familiar designation of human love. 
Its scanty use in the Old Testament seemed like one of 
many poetic terms, — Jesus brought it into common use; 
and henceforth the love of God — affirmed by a few in the 
elder time — was now trumpeted from the housetops. 

This prepared the way for a living spiritual worship, in 
the place of a defunct ritualistic service. The personal hab- 
its of Jesus, his "wont " to pray, had great weight with his 
followers. And his comments upon prayer are of distinct 
and unique value in the Biblical texts relating to the topic. 

Closely connected with this, is the emphasis Jesus placed 
upon man's sonship of God, quieting man's unrest, and 
leading him to apprehend that which is the greatest in life. 
Jesus taught men that if they are relatively ignorant of 
God, or even prodigals, } r et are they sons, who need spirit- 
ual renewal and a prompt return to filial love and service. 

From this grows out the doctrine of the brotherhood of 
man : the rights of man, equality before the law, equal 
chance in the competition of life, brotherly love, mercy, the 
forgiveness of injuries, benevolence, the right use of 
wealth, the Golden Rule,* — all these are involved in our 

* " A rule as portable as oar self-love." — John Harris, D.D. 

240 



THE ORIGINALITY OF JESUS. 

Saviour's teaching upon this point. It was this which 
tended to break down the difference between the Greek 
and the barbarian, the bond and the free. It tended also 
to repress intolerance, and sometimes to count outsiders as 
disciples. Jealous sectarians were changed by Jesus into 
the most charitable and catholic of men.* 

Then, too, in making luminous the relation between man 
and his Maker, Jesus placed so much emphasis upon the 
doctrine of a future world, that it passed into a proverb 
that life and immortality are brought to light through the 
Gospel. An idea to which little reference was made in the 
Old Testament, now came to be one of the great factors in 
the new dispensation. 

There are two other points relating to the originality of 
Jesus that invite consideration : the one., what Jesus said 
about himself ; the other, his idea of the Kingdom he was 
about to establish. 



* " My neighbor is neither my fellow-sectarian, nor my fellow- 
countryman, nor my fellow-churchman, but man in need." — Rev. C. A. 
Row, in his "Jesus of the Evangelists." 



241 



CHAPTER THREE. 

His Self-Assertion. 

.Qs, 



(3 HE principles announced by Jesus, then so new to the 
4 world, proved, under the Holy Spirit, and through 

^-L the instrumentality of the early disciples, to be the 
historic beginning of a new age in the realm of 
ideas. This religious movement centered about the proc- 
lamation of Jesus, that he was to receive the undivided 
homage of every human soul, and that his followers must 
prepare for him a Kingdom throughout the earth. 

St. Paul did not say, " If ye love me, keep my command- 
ments," or " If any love not Paul let him be accursed." 
Yet Jesus made this claim for himself. Others might seek 
the truth, he was the truth ; and the allegiance of all lovers 
of the truth was due to him alone. 

The other doctrines of Jesus, and all his maxims, found 
their authority in the central truth, that he would draw 
all men personally unto himself. The self-central charac- 
ter of Jesus' teaching is illustrated by our finding forty-six 
references to himself in one chapter of the Gospels. 
[book vi.] 242 



THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. 

UPON the truth of his Messiahship he would build his 
Church. "Christ was the Rock," says Augustine, 
"upon which Peter himself was built." After this 
confession of Peter, for prudential reasons, lest he need- 
lessly antagonize his enemies, Jesus charged his disciples 
that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.* 
And in the next verse, it is said, from that time he began 
to show his disciples what he should suffer, and his death. 
Yet when the end came, he uttered before the high priest, 
in that solemn hour in which he was condemned to die for 
it, the same truth that had been first made known at Jacob's 
wellside.f There can be no difference of opinion upon this 
point, — that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and that he 
looked upon it as his mission to be the Saviour of the 
world. 

As the Messiah, or the Son of God, he claimed to be the 
source of spiritual life, through whom men would come 
to the Father. % He did not bid the weary and heavy laden 
goto God with their burdens, but to come to himself. § He 
represented himself as the living Bread from heaven, of 
which if a man eat, he will live forever. || He claimed to be 
the spiritual light of the world. T 

Jesus taught that he himself was the center of the moral 
universe, in such sense that all men were to come to him for 
salvation. He pardoned sin, and claimed authority to do 

*Matt. xvi:20. 

f Mark xiv : 61-64. Matt, xxvi : 63-66. Luke xxii : 67,68. 
% Jojm xiv : 6. § Matt, xi : 28. || John vi : 51. ^ John viii : 12, 

243 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

it.* In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus taught the 
master in Israel " heavenly things," " known " and " seen" 
by the Son of Man, concerning the scheme of salvation : — 
God so loved the world that he gave his Son ; who must be 
lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish: 
that the world through him might be saved, f In accord 
with this, Jesus demanded supreme love, and cross bearing 
in his service. J And he bade his disciples celebrate his 
self-sacrifice for the world's salvation, throughout the 
church, during all ages, in the maintenance of the Lord's 
Supper. § 

THERE are several particulars in which Jesus associated 
his claims with the claims of Jehovah, as if classifying 
himself with God. Take, for example, the passage 
(John xiv : 1), " Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe 
in God, believe also in me " ; words uttered under the 
shadow of the cross, and with a vision of his sepulcher at 
next door. 

In John v : 17-46, Jesus claimed to have a share in the 
unceasing energy of God in his providential care and all 
sustaining force, — "My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work." And then, when the Jews thought his words blas- 
phamous, he entered into a more detailed statement ; claim- 

* Matt. ix:6. Mark ii : 5,10. 

f John iii : 11-17. The same thing in substance is stated in John 
vi : 37-40. 

t Matt, x : 37,38. § Mark xiv : 22-24. Luke xxii : 19, 20. % 

244 



THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. 

ing power to raise the dead,* to judge the world, f to carry on 
the works of God, and affirming that this was the Scriptural 
teaching concerning the Messiah. The record in John x : 
24, 25, 30, 33,36-38, leaves no doubt that the Jews understood 
Jesus as classifying himself with God as to his claims.]; 

Jesus said many things which affirm his pre-existence.§ 

Jesus associated himself with the Father,] in the promise 
of a future-abiding with his disciples. 

He who had no place to lay his head, affirmed that he 
would prepare a place in heaven for his disciples. 

Jesus associated himself with the Father, as the prayer- 
hearing God.^f 

Jesus associated himself with the Father in sending. the 
Holy Spirit.** 

He associated himself with the Father, and with the 
Holy Spirit, in the baptismal formula. 

Jesus claimed all authority in heaven and in earth, and 
that his mandates ft were to be observed in discipling all 
nations. J;J 

*In John x: 18, Jesus says that he has power to lay down his life, 
and to take it again. 

f This claim is elaborated in Matt, xxv : 31-46. 

X Jesus' claim, in Matt, xii : 6, 8, to be Lord of the Sabbath day, and 
greater than the temple of Jehovah, must have seemed blasphemous to his 
enemies. 

§Johniii:13; vi : 33, 35, 50, 51, 62; viii : 58 ; x : 36 ; xvi : 28 ; 
xvii : 5 . 

|| John xiv : 23. If John xiv : 13, 14 ; xvi : 23, 24. ** John xiv : 16, 26. 

|f What Jesus taught, as in John xiv : 28, about his mediatorial office, 
and his subjection therein to the Father, does not conflict with all the 
affirmations he made as to his essential nature. 

JJMatt. xxviii : 18, 20. 

245 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

IF such words were found in Socrates, in Plato, in Aris- 
totle, in Pliny, or in Cicero, it would be said that divine 

honors were claimed. And the very least that can be 
said of the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth is this : that 
he lived every day upon the assumption that he was to be 
the Redeemer of the world. It was the main thing about 
him. 

If it was a delusion, it was interwoven with all his 
thoughts and all that he did. If his pretensions were ill- 
founded, the idea indicated intellectual disorder. There 
was, however, a certain calmness and even balance in his 
daily living, such as we associate with sanity of mind. If 
we lay aside for a moment the question of his Messiahship, 
and take up the character of Jesus in its ordinary manifes- 
tations, and consider what he taught, and what he did, and 
what he was in the well-rounded proportion of his intel- 
lectual and moral gifts, — and then if we take one glance 
along the ages, and consider what benefits have accrued to 
mankind through the influence of Jesus, does it seem credi- 
ble that a beneficent Providence should connect such a life 
and such an influence with insanity in the mind of Jesus ? 
It would be out of analogy with the usual divine operations. 
The universe is not the outgrowth of unreason ; and " God 
in history " has not so ordered it that the most progressive 
part of mankind during two thousand years has derived its 
most helpful influences from a mind hopelessly insane in its 
principal intellectual conception. " If," says Professor Tal- 
cott, " if there ever was a sound human intellect, clear, 

246 



THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. 

well-balanced, and raised above every influence that could 
disturb or cloud its operation, it was the intellect displayed 
in the recorded life of Jesus of Nazareth."* 

Still more preposterous would it Ipe to think of Jesus as 
deliberately setting out to impose on his contemporaries 
and after ages, by attempting to imitate God so closely that 
man w T ould credit the deception. He taught, that all men 
should honor the Son as they honored the Father, f Did he 
seek to lead men into idolatry ? He did nothing to rebuke 
the belief, taking root in the minds of his disciples, that he 
was the Son of God. Would he not have done so, if he had 
been merely a good man ? Jesus was not sincere, if he was 
not divine ; not unselfish, not humble, not honest, if he 
was not the Son of God. Peter frankly said to Cornelius, 
" Stand up, I myself am also a man." If Jesus was merely 



* " The Christ of the Gospels shows not the faintest trace of fanaticism 
or self-delusion. On the contrary, he discouraged and opposed all the 
prevailing carnal ideas and hopes of the Messiah, as a supposed political 
reformer and emancipator. He was calm, self-possessed, uniformly con- 
sistent, free from all passion and undue excitement, never desponding, 
ever confident of success even in the darkest hour of trial and persecution. 
To every perplexing question he quickly returned the wisest answer ; he 
never erred in his judgment of men or things : from the beginning to the 
close of his public life, before friend and foe, before magistrate and people, 
in disputing with Pharisees and Sadducees, in addressing his disciples or 
the multitude, while standing before Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas, or sus- 
pended on the cross, — he showed an unclouded intellect and complete 
mastery of appetite and passion ; in short, all qualities that are the very 
opposite of those which characterize persons laboring under self-delusion 
or any mental disease." — Philip Schaff, D.D. 

fJohn v :23. 

247 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

a man, should he not have frankly told Peter so, when the 
disciple confessed his Master's Messiahship ? The silence 
of Jesus was fraudulent unless he was the Son of God. 
" See thou do it not," said the angel to Saint John, "for I 
am thy fellow servant: worship God."* Was the angel 
more honest than Jesus ? Jesus was not " the faithful and 
true witness,"f unless he was what he claimed to be. J Un- 
less Jesus was what he claimed to be, his denunciation of 
hypocrites would have recoiled upon himself. 

Yet, " a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither 
can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." "It cannot," 
says Dr. Joseph Parker, "be an easy task hypocritically 
to represent God upon the earth, without now and again 
letting the mask slip aside. How can the finite steadily 
carry the Infinite, when the Infinite is at war with him ? 
Christ mUst be more than a good man, or worse than 
the worst man." "The only alternative," says Professor 
Talcott, "that remains to us is : — either, to accept him for 
what he declares himself to be ; or, to ascribe to him with- 
out any qualification, the boldest, the most arrogant, the 
most blasphemous of all impostures, yet an imposture stead- 
ily directed to the promotion of the highest style of good- 



* Rev. xix : 10. f Rev. iii : 14. 

I " If Christ is not truly God, then Mahomet would indisputably 
have been a far greater man than Christ, as he would have been far more 
veracious, more circumspect, and more zealous for the honor of God, since 
Christ, by his expressions, would have given dangerous occasion for 
idolatry ; while on the other hand not a single expression of the kind can 
be laid to the charge of Mahomet." — Lessing. 

248 



THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. 

ness, and connected with a life which, except upon this 
revolting supposition, is a life of sinless perfection, and the 
only such life, that has ever been lived upon earth."* 

It is very common to say of a man who is well known 
to us, that he is " not the kind of a man " who would do so 
and so. . The study of the character of Jesus Christ shows 
that he was neither insane nor wicked, — he was not that 
kind of a man. "If," says the author of Ecce Homo, "if 
his biographers have delineated his character faithfully, 
Christ was one naturally contented with obscurity, wanting 
the restless desire for distinction and eminence which is 
common in great men, hating to put forward personal 
claims, disliking competition and disputes ' who should be 
greatest,' finding something bombastic in the titles of 
royalty, fond of what is simple and homely, of children, 
of poor people, occupying himself so much with the con- 
cerns of others, with the relief of sickness and want, that 
the temptation to exaggerate the importance of his own 
thoughts and plans was not likely to master him ; lastly, 
entertaining for the human race a feeling so singularly fra- 
ternal that he was likely to reject as a sort of treason the 
impulse to set himself in any manner above them. Christ, 
it appears, was this humble man. When we have fully pon- 
dered the fact, we may be in a condition to estimate the force 
of the evidence, which, submitted to his mind, could induce 
him, in direct opposition to all his tastes and instincts, per- 

* Christianity and Skepticism: Lecture by Professor Daxie-l S. Tal- 

COTT, D.D. 

249 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

sistently, with the calmness of entire conviction, in opposi- 
tion to the whole religious world, in spite of the offense 
which his own followers conceived, to claim a dominion 
more transcendent, more universal, more complete, than 
the most delicious votary of glory ever aspired to in his 
dreams." 

When we " look at his unaffected and all-pervading 
piety, at his universal and self-sacrificing benevolence, look 
at his purity and elevation above the world, listen to his 
prayers for his murderers on the cross," * we cannot think 
of Jesus as being the kind of a man who would be easily 
deceived in regard to his own mission, or who would deceive 
others. 

It is much more reasonable to suppose that God revealed 
himself in the person of Christ, than to suppose that he who 
was the highest realization of earthly excellence, was 
secretly proud, and self-seeking and hypocritical ; or self- 
deceived, and deceiving others throughout fifty or sixty 
generations of men. 

"Jesus," says Pascal, "spoke so simply of the greatest 
things, and even of divine things, that we feel that he must 
have been familiar and at home with them." His character 
confessedly accorded with his high claims. And, the most 
pure and elevated among mankind find that in his charac- 
ter, which still stands before them as an unattained ideal 
perfection. "In his person, speaking human language, 

* President Mark Hopkins, LL.D. 

250 



THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. 

mingling freely in human society, the world saw that which 
permanently raised its idea of God." * 

The Infinite Majesty, the Creator of the ends of the 
earth, was never more alone in the universe, than was 
Jesus Christ upon the earth, in his nature and in his activi- 
ties, — forever solitary, and forever occupied in the new 
creation : both equally manifesting God in his self -revela- 
tion in the physical and in the spiritual creation. Is it not 
the chief study in earthly lore, to learn to know God aright, 
and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent ? 

* Professor Dods, Essay upon Trustworthiness of the Gospels. 




251 



a 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

A. Kingdom to Establish. 

-^©<^ — ■ 

(^ HE teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of 
God, was, like the other ideas he put forth, but the 
expression of a thought with which he had become 
familiar in studying in Hebrew history, poetry, and proph- 
ecy, in early manhood at Nazareth. His originality con- 
sisted in more sharply outlining the nature of the Kingdom, 
in its principles, and in giving great prominence to the idea 
in his teaching, and in making definite plans for realizing the 
visions of ancient seers by establishing the spiritual reign 
of God among men in world-wide relations. 

The old dispensation had made it clear that there was a 
perfect moral providence ruling over the world, yet the 
Jewish system was essentially provincial ; and Jesus threw 
aside the old religious machinery,* and gave to the relig- 
ious spirit of his people new forms through which to work 
— forms adapted to the whole world. 

There is no lack of originality in this scheme, — a Naz- 
arene Carpenter setting out to redeem the whole human 

* This was the final effect of his teaching, when connected with the 
providential movements pertaining to the fall of Jerusalem. 

[book vi.] 252 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

race by spiritual ideas of such a nature that they could be 
carried to every part of the globe. The novelty of it, when 
the scheme came to be understood, and when men knew 
what the ideas were, was well fitted to enlist the interest 
and enthusiasm of the choicest spirits in the Hebrew and 
the Gentile world. 

It was a deliberate plan to outreach the grave, to pass on 
beyond it, to seize upon limitless years, to project his per- 
sonality upon all coming time. It was connected with a 
vital movement, that had been already working during some 
centuries : and Jesus took up the work of the most clear- 
sighted and devout priests, prophets, and kings of the elder 
world, — and what he did was with reference to the entire 
sweep of after ages. Soberly, serenely, he did what God 
had been doing in the moral government of mankind ; and 
the goal he set for himself was not one to be reached in his 
lifetime, but after a long series of centuries. And in doing 
what he did in his brief years, he took nothing from his con- 
temporaries, but to such as received him he imparted such 
power as they needed for carrying forward the Kingdom of 
God, — " I appoint unto you a kingdom." He no sooner said 
this, than he came to the end of his life ; but his work was 
successful, in that there were men so imbued with the spirit 
of their Master as to be prepared to reign in a spiritual 
kingdom. It was to be a reign of righteousness, of love to 
God and man ; and it was to be advanced by moral means. 
It was this thought, which, like an undying seed, was 
planted in the hearts of a few disciples. 

The rabbis had thought the Messiah would bring to them 

253 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

political freedom ; and Jesus was misunderstood at first by 
the apostles, and they sometimes doubted the expediency of 
his course, and they were disappointed at his death. But 
the heart of Jesus knew no discouragement, he was confi- 
dent of future days ; and he calmly acquiesced in the sub- 
jection of his people to Rome, and wept over the sorrows of 
that national dissolution which he foresaw. He foresaw 
also the universal dominion of truth, purity, and peace, 
among men ; and when he was about to die, he assumed 
that his Gospel would be preached throughout the world, 
and that deeds of kindness and fealty to him would be 
spoken of in far away realms and climes. So in that 
despairing age, Jesus proclaimed the final triumph of the 
truth, and the subjugation of mankind by force of ideas 
and the power of love, rather than through the conquest 
of arms. 



OUR Saviour taught that the Holy Spirit would be the 
divine instrumentality for carrying forward this work. 
When we consider the contribution of Jesus to the world's 
thought, we are, for one thing, to note this : he took the 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament, and 
gave new force to it ; portraying certain characteristics of 
the dispensation of the Spirit, and leading his disciples to 
rely upon the Holy One, as in effect the present Christ in all 
ages, — so baptizing them with the Holy Ghost and with fire. 
"God permitted," says Chrysostom, "the single temple 
at Jerusalem to be destroyed, and erected in its stead 

254 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

a thousand others of far higher dignity, — * Ye are the 
temples of the living God.'" "He dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you," said Jesus. When, therefore, Luther was 
tempted, he took refuge in the words of Jesus, saying to 
the adversary, "Martin Luther does not live here, Jesus 
Christ lives here." When an eminent, modern seer tells 
us, " I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can 
travel, but to take counsel of his own bosom," we wish 
to add, " Blessed is that bosom in which the Mighty Coun- 
selor abides." " I dwell with him that is of a contrite 
spirit," saith the high and lofty One who inhabit eth eter- 
nity. 

Thou God of prophet's fire, 

To Thee our souls aspire : 

We cry with tongues unclean, 

We cry with anguish keen, 

For touch of living coal 

To cleanse the life and soul. 

To Thee is our desire, 

O penetrating fire ; 

Our hearts for Thee aglow, 

We kindle Thee to know, 

Thou God of prophet's flame, — 

The Heat, the Light, Thy name. 

Baptizing fire, descend, — 
The light of God to lend 
To lisping tongues of fire ; 
Our lips shall never tire 
Thy name to sound on earth,— 
Thou Fire of Heavenly birth. 



255 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

IN selecting the twelve, Jesus did not first call the rich or 
the scholars of the nation ; he took men as he found 

them, not men of genius but of common sense. He set 
out to establish his Kingdom, as to its human instrumental- 
ity, by the activity of the average man, of ordinary diligence 
and thoughtful thrift, — working men, baptized and sancti- 
fied, in whom the Holy Spirit was indwelling. 

The influence of Christianity in uplifting the world can- 
not be accounted for, on the theory of a mere human life of 
Christ, or by the ordinary operation of human activity. 
What perpetuated the influence of Jesus, and what gave 
efricienc}^ to the apostles of the new faith, was the power of 
the Holy Spirit. The life and work of Jesus, and of his 
disciples in all ages, but represent a part of that mighty 
movement which had been begun of old time, and which 
has been carried forward through hoary centuries until 
now, and which will continue while sun and moon endure, 
— the activity of Infinite Love in redeeming mankind, in 
perfecting the moral evolution of the race, in recreating 
man in God's image. 

It is only by the doctrine of the Kingdom of God that we 
can account for the outcome of the relatively obscure life of 
Jesus. The very fact that he was, upon his own theory and 
in the sober judgment of vast multitudes of men, in some 
proper sense the incarnation of the Infinite Power that makes 
for righteousness, avails us nothing, in accounting for the 
amazing results of his mission, except as it is connected with 
what went before and what came after in the moral govern- 

256 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

ment of the God with whom we have to do. Unless the words 
of Jesus are true that " the Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work," and unless it be true that the Spirit of the living God 
has worked during all subsequent ages, and is to work until 
the average man upon this globe is in the image of God and 
in harmony with him, and until society is regulated by the 
law of love, the life of Jesus was that of a carpenter with- 
out significance ; and, upon the other hand, if it be credible 
that God has so made the world that he can continue to 
have to do with it, and so made man that he can influence 
him for good, and if God is governing this world, then it is 
altogether credible that God was in Christ in such sense as 
to make good the affirmations of Jesus in regard to his 
mission, — and if so, then the life of Jesus appears in its 
historic relations, God with us, as he has been since the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be. 

It is in this light alone that Jesus' choice of the apostles 
seems reasonable, or defensible. It was a choice made in 
accordance with God's design to use and to honor the 
average man, and to fit him for high place now and in 
ages unending. If Jesus had not been confident that his 
work was of a piece with what went before and what was 
to come after, in its divine energy, then he would have 
bungled at his work like an awkward carpenter patching 
up God's moral world through the instrumentality of 
wealthy extortioners, and prejudiced, learned, and cruel 
ecclesiastics. 

The contrast between the circumstances under which the 
teachings of Jesus were uttered, and the blaze of glory 

257 17 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

which afterwards surrounded his words, has been by no 
one better set forth in two paragraphs than by Mr. J. M. 
Lowrie : — 

" We have here brought before us a young man born in 
lowly life, having no advantages of position, or even edu- 
cation, to lift him above the mass of men ; and contenting 
himself by instructing, with the voice merely, the humble 
classes in society in one of the meaner provinces of the 
Roman Empire. For three or four years he spent his time 
in these pursuits ; he gathered about him a meager band of 
disciples, not above his own state ; he awakened only per- 
secution and contempt among the influential men of his 
own nation ; and before he reached the middle age of life, 
he was condemned as a malefactor, and put to a violent 
and shameful death. 

" After his death the most remarkable and permanent 
power belonged to one whose life, up to its latest moment, 
had been full of humiliation. His were the mighty words 
of the world. They were living and life-giving principles, 
which took hold upon men with regenerating power. 
There was nothing in his claims, his teachings, his promises, 
to inflame or to gratify the ordinary passions of men ; no 
honors to be won, no ambition to be gratified, no sensual 
pleasures to be enjoyed. Yet his words were powerful as 
no other teachings have ever been upon the earth. They 
went forth from the narrow boundaries of Judea, and 
attacked the hoary prejudices and superstitions of the 
pagan world ; and in a few centuries, the Gospel of the de- 
spised man of Galilee became the avowed faith of the 

258 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

Roman Empire. And now for many ages, during which 
hosts of great men have risen and been forgotten, his 
words, wherever received in their simplicity, have had a 
power to cast down superstition, to change the aspect of 
human society, to teach men the true principles of freedom, 
to awaken impulses that refine and strengthen and elevate 
humanity, and to support true morality and true piety, — 
that seems strangely in contrast with the feeble attain- 
ments of his life work, and with the apparent triumph of 
his foes in his death upon the cross." 

There is no way in which this can be accounted for, 
except by the truth of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, 
which reveals to us the work of Jesus as one part only, the 
most vital part, of the scheme of human redemption, which 
began before the Christian era, and which has been actively 
carried on by the Holy Spirit in the later centuries. If the 
Kingdom of God is credible, then the Incarnation is credi- 
ble ; and the historic effects attributed to the life and work 
of Jesus are easily explicable. And the chief effect is seen 
to be the elevation of the average man, through awakening 
in him the moral energies that constitutionally belong to 
him by his being made in the image of God. 

IT is in the light of the doctrine of the Kingdom that we 
understand the method of man's moral evolution, — 
slowly unfolding during the cycles of human history. 

Man's moral redemption is not wrought out by formally 
following book directions ; it is wrought out through ideas 
which transform the life. Jesus first of all bound his dis- 

259 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ciples to himself by ties of personal affection, — and then, 
after that, revealed to them the crosses they should bear as 
his disciples ; adapting his words to their minds, by an 
orderly progression of thought, — first shadowing, then 
clearly showing, one by one, the fundamental ideas of his 
Kingdom. At first, he was easily understood ; then the 
minds of his disciples were tasked, as the Master went for- 
ward. His early claims seemed so simple, that it was like 
continuing the work of John the Baptist ; yet he ended 
with demanding the undivided homage of every human 
soul. At first, his comments on the Mosaic code showed 
the spirituality of the law ; afterwards he proclaimed him- 
self to be the Lawgiver, equal with the Father. He first led 
a life of self-sacrifice, and taught others to do it ; and then 
he explained that his death upon the cross was needful to 
fulfill the Scriptures, — that a suffering Messiah must found 
a new Kingdom of Love, 

He tempered his words to the ability of his disciples to 
profit by them, — " I have many things to say unto you, but 
ye cannot bear tiiem now." In the minds of the disciples, 
the Messianic ideas were developed gradually ; and the 
timeliness of his teachings is a lesson to all after ages. 

Jesus has never been surpassed as a teacher ; he knew 
how to draw out the mental force of his pupils. He did not 
do all their thinking for them. Nor did he impart too much 
information, but left something for the scholars to do. He 
aroused their thinking faculties, and taught them principles 
of world-wide application. He gave them seed-thoughts ; 
vital like the seeds of the mangrove, which sprout before 

260 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

they fall, and are so weighted as to fall with the sprout 
uppermost, — so that they begin to grow as soon as they 
touch the ground. 

Jesus was far more than a carpenter ; he did not under- 
take to govern the lives of his disciples through measuring 
lines. — chalking out states of mind by compass and square. 
He announced, rather, certain principles of conduct,* by 
which they could and must regulate their practice, — so 
making them independent and trustworthy. Their atten- 
tion was not directed to sinnings, but to sin ; they were to 
contend against that selfishness which is the essential ele- 
ment iltall wrong doing. He developed individual manli- 
ness, by putting upon each one the responsibility for his 
own self -making or marring. 

Jesus taught no casuistical mechanics, — a living by 
forms, ceremonies, and states of mind ; but he gave to every 
disciple ideas by which to govern life, and then bade him 
shift for himself like a man. He addressed himself to con- 
science, and led men to attempt to do the will of God ; and 
he trusted that in such an exalted life they would have 
power to regulate their common affairs in a moral manner, 
without minute directions from him. 

A striking illustration of the method of Jesus is found 
in his political teachings : he did not teach politics, — yet he 
taught moral principles which overturned empires. He 
appeared to be regardless of external circumstances, or im- 

* " Let him that is without sin cast the first stone : " this is a very 
Christlike anecdote, even if not authentic. The principle is, that those 
who would enforce the law must obey the law. 

261 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

mediate events, — fixing his mind rather upon some far off 
age when righteousness and justice would be meted out, 
and when the oppressor would cease to do evil ; and he set 
to work to insert in the minds of men righteous and just 
ideas by which ultimately to right all social wrongs. 

Another illustration of his method of promoting freedom 
of development in his Kingdom, is found in the fact that 
Jesus formulated no creed, but gave his disciples such ma- 
terial that they could make one. Would it not have been 
easy for the Master to give a definite creed in a few words, 
and so silence the sound of controversy in all ages ? Yet, 
he did not saw and hammer his dogmas, to make them fit 
men square or round. His disciples were kept in tow, not 
by mere theological leading strings, but by intellectual 
and moral leadership. He chose to have men study, he 
would discipline them in thinking. Many of his words 
were to be understood only by taking time for reflection. 
His phrases were of deep and philosophic import, far reach- 
ing, and fruitful of students in all generations ; so that the 
Christian Church has furnished the intellectual leaders of 
mankind, — men able to formulate and to defend their 
symbols of faith, and to set forth the results of Christian 
thinking, age after age. 



THE very idea of a Kingdom of God among men, implies 
the conduct of operations during many ages of his- 
tory ; and it implies an Infinite Patience, self-control, kind 
dealing, and the repetition of line upon line in giving in- 

262 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

struction. No one can read over the details of the encoun- 
ters Jesus had with his disciples, his crafty enemies, and the 
rude multitudes, without being impressed with his self-pos- 
session, his long suffering, his meekness, and the iterative 
element in his teaching. Nor can one read the story with- 
out being impressed at every turn with the coolness and 
the even balance of Jesus under all circumstances. Nothing 
could be farther from the temperament of an enthusiast, 
or a deluded fanatic. He was wholly possessed by a great 
idea, and he was governed always by principle, never by 
impulse ; his years of public ministration being marked by 
the same degree of patience that was exercised in his calm 
waiting, during -thirty years of carpentry. 

An illustration of this occurs in St. Mark's Gospel 
(i : 32-39), where Jesus refused to do good. When all the 
city was at his door, he rose up long before day and went 
into a solitary place ; and his disciples searched for him, 
saying, "All men seek thee." But he turned a deaf ear, — 
saying, " Let us go into the next towns." 

That is, he choose his work ; rejecting this, and electing 
that. Not attempting to do it all, he sacrificed the less to 
the greater. He went into the next towns, that he might 
preach there also. In one town, or one small city, he 
might have stayed as a physician ; and might even have 
given to that district immunity from future disease. But 
he took the broader, wider way. 

Again in St. Matthew's Gospel (x : 5,6), Jesus narrowed 
the direction to his disciples, — " Go not into any way of the 
Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans." 

263 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Why did he not manufacture disciples by miracle, raising 
up enlightened and zealous children of Abraham out of the 
stones, so that the Samaritans and the Gentiles might have 
heard the Gospel news without delay ? Nothing erratic, 
however, was there about his ministry ; he planned to 
carry on his work a little at a time, in an orderly manner, 
— by a natural development like that from seed to fruit. It 
was connected with a Kingdom, in which moral evolution 
is marked by slow and sure processes ; like the work of 
God in creating, developing, and sustaining the physical 
universe. 

We can see therefore why Jesus should walk patiently 
with perfidious Judas, and those who were slow of heart. 
He did not expect them to be rooted and grounded in love, 
except by the inworking power of the Holy Ghost. The 
unbelief, and misbelief, and prejudice, of narrow-minded 
disciples called for patience on his part. "If I had a 
friend," says Dr. Bushnell, "who was always making me 
to appear weaker and meaner than I am, putting the flat- 
test construction possible on my words and sayings, pro- 
fessing still, in his own low conduct, to represent my ideas 
and principles, protesting the great advantage he gets, 
from being much with me, in just those things where he is 
most utterly unlike me — I could not bear him even for one 
week, I should denounce him utterly, blowing all terms of 
connection with him. And yet Christ has patience large 
enough to bear us still." 

So, too, in dealing with the ecclesiastical leaders of 
Jewry, Jesus proceeded upon the principle that it would be 

2G4 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

long before his mustard seed would grow into a tree. He 
came unto his own, and his own received him not. What an 
inexpressible disappointment it would have been to Jesus, if 
the main end of his life had been to gain the good will of 
his contemporaries. " Consider him who endured such con- 
tradiction of sinners against himself." In the discourse in 
the eighth chapter of John, Jesus was ten times captiously 
interrupted, unfairly contradicted, or reviled. In the midst 
of very solemn words, one of his hearers broke in, asking 
a question about division of property. He was taunted as 
a suicide, when he spoke of his home in heaven. The eye 
and lip of scorn were familiar to him. Yet there was about 
him nothing abject, nor did he swerve from his supreme 
purpose on account of Pharisaic sneers. 

The kindly light, so clear, and piercing like a sunbeam, 
shone in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not. 
The fickle multitude were ready to feed from his bounty, 
or to crucify him, according to the mood of the hour. Having 
eaten to satiety their barley loaves and fishes, they left the 
crumbs scattered about, and had no appetite for the Bread 
that came down from heaven. Only a handful of men, 
easily counted, took up the cross to follow him. At the 
very highest estimate, out of Rve thousand seated about 
his miraculous table, not one in ten became a disciple in 
the lifetime of Jesus. When the Son of God came to 
earth, he had a right to expect a good greeting ; but he was 
not so successful, in the immediate results of his preaching 
and teaching, as we should have thought beforehand that 
the Son of God would be. It was a part of his humiliation : 

265 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the God-man consented to be unsuccessful in pleading with 
men. He saw men turn their backs on him. Did not 
Capernaum admire his miracles, then treat his moral man- 
dates with cold neglect ? Nazareth had no faith in his 
miracles, no patience with his words ; and the rabble, who 
had known him when a boy, took him up behind the city, 
and tried to throw him off a precipice. He made three 
preaching tours in Galilee, and had a great following ; but 
the crowded villages rejected his doctrine. Did not the 
man who was cured of a disease of thirty-eight years' 
standing, use his new strength in leaguing at once with the 
enemies of Jesus ? It would be easy to believe that his 
voice, too, joined in the bitter cry — " Crucify him, crucify 
him." Yet Jesus was moved by compassion, whenever he 
saw a crowd ; as if they were sheep without a shepherd. 

Jesus knew that his humbling religion would be long in 
conquering the proud race of man ; that his lofty precepts 
would find slow entrance into minds groveling in the dust. 
He knew that his gentle religion would find it difficult to 
win rough men to believe on him ; and that so severe a 
religion would be slow to lead men to believe in such justice. 
Yet he knew that at last, all the meek of the earth and all 
the just of the earth would be attracted to himself. He did 
not wildly lead a rebellion against Roman oppression ; but 
he steadily worked to promote that holy life, by which his 
countrymen might be free indeed. He put forth those 
principles which remodeled society. Jesus did not fret in 
the midst of a wicked world. During four thousand years 
a violent race had run riot over the globe. Jesus came ; 

266 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

uttered a few parables, healed a few sick, — and died. 
Four years after, Caligula reigned. Twenty-one years 
after, Nero reigned. Galba, Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, 
and such creatures reigned for three hundred jeavs ; then 
the principal figures in history were cunning and worldly 
minded ecclesiastics, and petty puppet kings, for twelve 
hundred years more. Did not Jesus know that this would 
be so ? Could he not see the line of coming kings ? Did 
he not know that it would be hundreds of years before 
his religion would get to the throne, and take a great part 
in history ? Yet Jesus did not fret ; nor was he anxious for 
the success of his doctrine. Day by day, he was speaking 
the words that were spirit and life ; yet he knew that they 
would fall powerless on the ears of the masses of mankind 
for many generations, — as snownakes falling on the sea. 
A voice from heaven said, i( This is my beloved son, hear 
ye him," but Jesus knew that men would not hear him. 
Yet he spoke right on every day, and his words had the 
vitality of the thoughts of God. 

Fretting is no part of the work of reform. Amid the 
intolerable reign of Satan, Jesus bore up and began his own 
reign. Nor was he out of heart in the midst of apparent 
disaster, the ignominious failure of what seemed — to con- 
temporary Jewish and heathen historians — an insignificant 
career. 

It was this sublime patience that attracted the attention 
of St. Paul, a patience connected with the reign of God : 
" I am also your brother, and companion in tribulation, 
and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ" 

267 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

So there was founded upon the earth that phase of the 
Kingdom of God now known as the Church of Jesus 
Christ :— 

"The Church of apostles and martyrs, of fathers and 
confessors ; in catacombs and in prisons, in deserts and 
caves of the earth, in palaces and cathedrals ; in exile and 
in missions, in all ages the one flock of God, the Church of 
the past, the Church of the present, the Church of the 
future, chanting ever the same faith, holding ever the same 
Christ, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end." * 

" Our God, our help in ages past, 

Our hope for years to come ; 
Our shelter from the stormy blast, 

And our eternal home : 
Under the shadow of thy throne 

The saints have dwelt secure ; 
Sufficient is thine arm alone, 

And our defense is sure." f 

* Joseph P. Thompson, D.D. 

\The topic of this chapter, the Kingdom of Christ, is also the subject of a 
chapter by Professor Sewall, page 512. Vide also an Article by Rev. 
William Hekridge, B.D., in Book XL, Chapter 7, upon the Democracy of 
Jesus, which illustrates^ the far-reaching influence of Jesus as a practical re- 
former, in promoting the Divine Kingdom among men. 



208 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

His Gentleness and. Severity. 



<s> 




OHN the Baptist apprehended only the severe side 
of the Saviours character, — " Whose fan is in his 
hand " ; gathering the wheat, and burning the 
chaff. His own speech was of sharp and stinging 
quality. Yet the fierce men of war became meek ; lawyers 
learned new lessons ; priests and Levites were taught by 
him ; the debased and hopeless found new life, and formed 
new purposes. So the friend of the Bridegroom prepared 
for the coming of a spiritual Kingdom. 

THE teaching of Jesus in regard to advancing the King- 
dom of God, implies a state of warfare, in order that 
men of good will may be at peace : " first pure, then peace- 
able." Jesus never taught that it was a matter of indiffer- 
ence how men were related to him; they must decide 
against him, or be on his side. Jesus joined issue with the 
world, the flesh, and the devil.* 

* " The factious disputing of Pharisee and Sadducee, the wild fanati- 
cism of the zealots, the eccentricities of the Essenes, the worldiness of the 
priests, the profligacy, the domineering, hard-hearted ambition of the Roman 
world, the effete rhetoric of the Greek world, found their proper level in the 
presence of an influence which ran counter to them all. ' ' — Dean Stanley, 
[book vi.] 269 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

With a majestic self-assertion of his claims, with great 
boldness identifying himself with the work of the Father 
and Moral Governor of mankind, and setting himself up as 
the attested representative of the Highest, he spoke with 
authority, with a certain urgency, in an aggressive spirit, 
bringing matters to a crisis in respect to personal allegiance 
or hostility. Did he not test the multitudes with such doc- 
trines that many left him ? He sifted them. Men were to 
be attached to him by the truth or not at all. " Come unto 
me," he said, " take my yoke upon you." But they had to 
leave Mammon behind them ; he would allow no divided 
service, — " He who is not with me is against me, and he 
that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." 

The teaching of Jesus was preeminently incisive. His 
appeals were direct, personal, pointed, practical ; inviting 
men to immediate action for, or against, the Kingdom of 
God. Take, for example, Luke ix : 59, 60 : — 

The man was called a disciple by one evangelist. He 
probably talked of becoming one : but when Jesus spoke 
to him about actually doing it, his hollow heart was dis- 
covered, and he was off, — " Suffer me to go [having de- 
parted] to bury my father ; " as if already out of sight of 
the Saviour. Jesus read the character of the man at a 
glance, and bade him decide now or never.* 

* To care for his father's old age was his intent. Or, if a burial was 
imminent, the Nazarite law (Numbers vi : 6, 7) would direct him to fol- 
low Jesus at once. The man expressed no purpose ever to follow (com- 
pare Elisha, I. Kings xix : 19, 20) ; had he been ready to go, his name 
might have been added to the honorable roll of those who soon went forth 
everywhere to preach him who was the Resurrection and the Life. 

270 



GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. 

So, too, when an eager young man, with a heart full of 
unrest, came " running" for eternal life, — he aimed high, 
and then refused the means of reaching what he sought ; 
having learned that his money was his master. Zaccheus 
decided instantly to give up all : yet this young nobleman 
lacked one thing, amid all his treasures. 

Upon another occasion, Jesus startled his hearers by 
turning round in the face of a crowd who were following 
him, and saying abruptly, " If any man come to me, and 
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, 
and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he 
cannot be my disciple." This was his text, and the men 
pricked up their ears to hear the short and pithy sermon or 
explanation he made of the text. They were given to 
understand that this business of chasing round in a crowd 
after a popular favorite, was a very different thing from 
taking up the true work of disciples. He would not have a 
wavering unreliable mob at his heels, when they ought to 
be at the work of godly decision and self-denying service. 
And he finished up his remarks to them on that occasion, 
by using what seems to have been a favorite form of 
speech with him : " Salt is good : but if the salt have lost 
his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned ? It is neither fit 
for the land, nor yet for the dung hill ; but men cast it out. 
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Then he went on 
his way again. 

That his hearers should make good use of their ears, and 
hear pungent things, he was determined. He made the 
men about him know what they would be at. If they 

271 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

would follow him, he said that he had not so much of a 
home on this globe as the foxes had. No man putting the 
hand to his plow was permitted even to look as if he would 
go back. Whoever would build must first count the cost 
and do it intelligently. He that was not ready to forsake 
all he had could never become a disciple. " Seek ye first," 
said Jesus, "the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness" : 
God first, and man second ; or there is no disciple. 

When Jesus saw crowds gathering together in the name 
of religion, he knew that they might side with the enemies 
of God when there should come up test questions ; and he 
would have men out and out his, or not his, — " Whosoever 
doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my 
disciple." It was this close and sharp personal preaching, 
that separated out from the aimless multitudes a handful of 
men, who began to conquer the world for their Master. 



IT is plain enough, therefore, that Jesus could not get on 
with the Pharisees, — they were too wicked. He might 
have tolerated their jealousy and their misinterpretation of 
Messianic Scriptures, and all their sanctimonious puerilities, 
but he could not do otherwise than utter in tender words 
of inexpressible sorrow his condemnation of those moral 
vipers, who crawled in and out of his Father's house, defil- 
ing it. True workman as he was, he still might have borne 
with them for shirking their share of life's burdens, yet 
their devouring widow's houses invoked his wrath. He did 
not object to their building tombs to the prophets, but that 

272 



GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. 

they should themselves be like whited sepulchers called 
down his curse. 

Jesus was the " Friend of Sinners," yet, in his character 
he was "separate from sinners" ; and when the Pharisees 
could not be led by love, he turned upon them : " I go my 
way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins : 
whither I go ye cannot come." Beholding their foredoomed 
capital, he wept over it, but the tears of Jesus did not hinder 
the march of the legions. He wept over the precious stones 
of the city ; but he did not revoke their doom, nor was one 
stone left upon another in all Mount Zion. 

The rabbis were all Pharisees, and they sat in Moses' 
seat, as the true successors of prophets and patriarchs. 
There were, of the Pharisees, six thousand heads of house- 
holds in Judea, in the time of Herod the Great ; forming 
an overwhelmingly strong party of wary and wily dispu- 
tants, ever ready to quote the elders in Israel of preceding 
generations, ready in the technique of ritual observance, 
learned in mystical lore, and as a class perverting the law 
to unrighteous uses.* They found in Jesus more than their 
match ; one whose words they could not take hold of before 
the people. 

Contact with rigid Pharisee and subtle Sadducee did not 
lead Jesus into wild statements concerning spirits in the 
other world, or to a lax interpretation of the law ; he was 

* In the time of Herod, no Jewish intellect was permitted even the 
slightest political activity ; and all the pent up energies of the ablest men 
in the nation were given to formulating definitions and directions as to the 
Mosaic law. 

273 18 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

guarded in his words and of well-balanced mind, observing 
due proportion in the truths he announced. He was, among 
the sophists, still straightforward ; and he was free from all 
taint of the hoary superstitions that were fostered and per- 
petuated by the bigots of his people. He rudely shocked 
the oriental notion that the old is always sacred, that 
custom is law even in morals, that the new is revolutionary. 
The spirit of the East was devout in the ritualistic worship 
of an unseen God, testifying for him in an age when 
idolatry occupied the throne of the world : it was the 
miracle of Jesus' life that he set free this religious spirit ; 
breaking, for many in Jewry, the rigid and rusty shackles 
of venerable formulas, which had been rubbed up and 
riveted anew by each new generation of the scribes and the 
Pharisees. 

With the scribes and Pharisees, their malignity was 
religious,— it was piety in them to slay Christ : this was the 
standpoint they occupied. Finally, all that was worst in 
Judaism came to be considered but a synonym for Pharisee ; 
until the very name of Pharisee became such an abomina- 
tion that it was definitely dropped out of Jewish nomen- 
clature after the fall of Jerusalem.* 



* Hating Jesus, his name and his memory, yet they gave in their 
bitter testimony to the facts of his life ; the Talmud, says Dean Farrar, 
contains a score of references to Jesus, confirming his stay in Egypt, his 
Davidic descent, his miracles, his apostolic following, his excommunication 
by the Sanhedrin, his crucifixion, and even his innocence. 



274 



GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. 

'7T.S a training for the Twelve, and for the disciples of 
[\ Jesus in early ages, the aggressive spirit of the Master 
had to do with the great success that attended the 
proclamation of Christ and him crucified in the years next 
following the resurrection. It was affirmation, not nega- 
tion, that attacked the Roman empire. 

Meek and lowly were those who had been with Jesus, 
yet they proclaimed the full and fair proportion of the Sav- 
iour's character, which was modeled on the study of those 
Messianic texts upon which he had meditated during a 
score of years in his workshop at Nazareth. They knew 
that their Lord had read of old time, that he who was 
anointed to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the 
broken hearted, to comfort all that mourn, should also pro- 
claim liberty to the captives and proclaim the day of God's 
vengeance. The Hebrew hymns, in his childhood, had 
taught Jesus that the Messiah should redeem the poor and 
needy from the hand of deceit and violence. And in the 
book of the law, he had read that he who was merciful 
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and 
truth, keeping mercy for thousands of generations, for- 
giving iniquity, transgression arid sin, would yet by no 
means clear the guilty. 

So it came about that the Rose of Sharon was not thorn- 
less ; and that he, who had been named in ancient song as 
the Lily of the Valley, had been also called the Lion of the 
tribe of Judah. And men, too, were warned lest they pro- 
voke the wrath of the Lamb of God : " For whither should 

275 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

we go for refuge, save to him ? If we find wrath with him, 
with whom shall we find ruth ? " 

Christ was manifest as the Infinite Conscience, to main- 
tain Moral Law among men. Was he loving and tender ? 
Was he not also stern and sometimes filled with righteous 
indignation ? Did not both meekness and majesty abide 
in his face ? Is not the law of love a two-edged sword ? 
Is not the Moral Governor of the universe the enemy of all 
who persistently oppose the law of love, all who attempt, 
so far as they are able, to break down the well-being of 
all worlds ? To love holiness is to hate sin ; nor can 
love do otherwise than be the enemy of all that is 
inimical to the object of love. If any one does not hate 
evil, how can he love goodness ? Jesus would never quench 
smoking flax or be unmindful of the least sign of celes- 
tial fire, yet he would bring forth justice to victory. Did 
not his goodness have edge to it, to wield against badness ?* 
Electricity is present in a myriad beneficent forms in na- 
ture, yet there are conditions in which it will rend the sky 
and tear the earth. Therefore it is written: "He that 
hath the Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son hath 
not life;" "Whosoever shall deny me, him will I also 
deny ; " " He that disbelieveth shall be condemned." 

* * ' Your goodness must have some edge — else it is none. ' ' — Emerson. 



276 



GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. 

THE manifest mercy — the gentleness as well as the 
severity — of the mission of Jesus is set forth as a 
scheme of redemption. It was no mere ethical system, 
however sublime : the life and death of Jesus meant far 
more. It exalted self-sacrifice into a world-wide principle, 
for the practical conduct of men : and it made God and 
man to be at one. 

When Thomas Aquinas asked Bonaventura to show him 
the library whence he had derived his stores of knowledge, 
in answer he pointed to the crucifix. " The Incarnation," 
says Faber, "is the point of arrival and departure of all his- 
tory. The destinies of nations, as well as of individuals, 
group themselves around it." The salvation of the world 
has been wrought out by a spiritual Messiah, a suffering 
Saviour. Men are to be saved through faith in Christ and 
him crucified. 

Jesus came to the earth as the expression of God's love 
to men, to teach that the Almighty is the All-merciful. 
Nor did the All-father ever upbraid a penitent prodigal be- 
fore receiving him. "When Christ saith, 'Come unto 
me,' he does not say, 'First love, and then come.' No, 
' Come ' to him, — that you may be made to love him. He 
does not say, 'Come,' because you are melted into contri- 
tion ; but that you may be : ' Come,' not because you have 
a deep conviction of sin, but that it may be made deep." * 

" I am that wounded man ; blessed Samaritan, heal me : 

*Dean W. F. Hook. 

27? 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

I am that wandering child, that is not worthy to be called 
thy son ; Father, make me thy meanest servant : I am the 
lost sheep, O seek and save me ; bring me home, Lord, 
unto thy heavenly fold." * 

" Thou art in the heart of those that confess Thee, and 
cast themselves upon Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after 
all their rugged ways. . . . With inward groanings, I 
knock at Thine ears, and, with a settled faith, cast my care 
on Thee."f 

" I have sinned," it is said in the prayers of St. Anselm, 
" I have sinned, and Thou hast suffered it ; I have offended, 
and yet Thou endurest me. If I repent, Thou sparest ; if 
I return, Thou receivest me ; yes, moreover, while I defer, 
Thou waitest for me. Wandering, Thou recallest me ; re- 
sisting Thee, Thou invitest me ; slumbering, Thou awak- 
enest me ; returning, Thou embracest me ; ignorant, Thou 
teachest me ; grieving, Thou soothest me ; when I am 
down, Thou raisest me up ; fallen, thou restorest me : Thou 
givest to me asking, Thou art found of me seeking, Thou 
openest to me knocking." 

All this faith and hope and love, — this penitence, this 
grieving, this self-abasement, this bringing the heart to 
God, this loud and importunate calling after the Father to 
receive his sinning child, — this is the outcome of the 
mission of Jesus, in its gentleness and in its severity. 



* Christopher Sutton, D.D., a.d. 1600. 
f Saint Augustine. 

278 




CHAPTER SIX. 

The World's Great Teacher. 

EAVEN and earth, saith our Lord, shall pass 
away, but my word shall not pass away. If we 

£> I take the hundred great men of history, and 

select from them all, those who have been 
great in the department of which Jesus made a specialty — 
the religious; if we write down these names; and if we 
then compare, one by one, their sayings with the words of 
Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge, we shall find him unmatched in the purity of his 
ethical system, the sublimity of the truths he announced, 
in depth and breadth of reasoning upon the highest themes, 
in logical clearness, in insight into the moral wants of man- 
kind, and in fervent love for humanity, — a standing mira- 
cle of moral wisdom out of heaven, the shadowless light of 
God. And even all this is but a part of what the apostle 
has called the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

The poets, the philosophers, the sages, are notable for 
this excellence, or for that, but there is no one whom we 
can for a moment compare with the Man of Nazareth. 

[Book VI.] 279 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

"Without writing a single line/' says SchafY, "he set more 
pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, 
orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, sweet 
songs of praise, than the whole army of great men of 
ancient and modern times." 

The longest of the Gospels is little more than two-score 
pages octavo in good type, and the four with all their repe- 
titions of the same things comprise not a hundred and fifty 
pages, — and yet we will match them against the libraries 
of the world for their moral and religious influence upon 
mankind. He was not an author, nor a scientist, nor a 
philosopher, nor a statesman, nor a warrior, but he. was 
morally and intellectually unique in this, — that men have 
never found one error in his teachings, nor have they in 
eighteen centuries of amazing intellectual activity added 
one iota to what he advanced upon moral and religious sub- 
jects ; and if any one challenges this, let him point out 
from all other sources the first ray of moral or religious 
truth that has been added to the teachings of Jesus.* 

The words of Jesus never grow old, — they were fitted to 
the times in which he lived, but they are equally applicable 
to all lands in all ages. Neither was his instruction at that 
time so far in advance of men's moral needs, as to lose its 
pertinency. The words of Jesus were like the light from 
heaven, adapted to the morning or to the evening of the 
world. 

* For this sentence, the Author is indebted to Christ and Ills Work, 
by Cyrus 1). Foss, New York, 1878. It is a condensed statement, based 
on what is said upon pages 49 and 51. 

280 



THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHER. 

It is a far reaching truth, that sweeps away all rival 
claims for the moral supremacy, when we say of Jesus that 
he is "the eternal contemporary of us all." * " You never 
get to the end of Christ's words," says Dean Stanley. 
"There is something in them always behind. They pass 
into proverbs, they pass into laws, they pass into doctrines, 
they pass into consolations ; but they never pass away, and 
after all the use that is made of them they are still not ex- 
hausted." f 

WHAT has been said, however, in the preceding section 
is not to be insisted upon. What is truly unique in 
the teachings of Jesus is that which is behind his words, — 
his personal character, his life, and his death of self-sacri- 
fice ; in fact the very appearance of Jesus upon this globe 
was in expression of God's disapproval of sin, and his love 
for the sinner. It was the work of Jesus, first and last, to 
institute a scheme of Redemption, to bring back to God his 
wayward and wandering children. And when we speak 

* This is the happy phrase of Frances E. Willard, LL.D. 

f This chapter is for testimony. I will, therefore, cite Dr. George 
Putnam's Sermons. Jesus, he says, commends himself to the most 
thoughtful men of ail ages : « < Nearly all the most eminent thinkers and 
writers in literature, philosophy, and religion, are not hostile in spirit to 
Jesus Christ. They do not wish to diminish his influence. They are 
most serious and earnest, if not devout men. They are not scoffers. 
They profess the highest appreciation of Christ, and regard themselves as 
promoting his true cause, his real and legitimate influence. The spirit 
which actuates them is not hostile to religion, or to Christ as its highest 
representative." 

281 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

about the ultimate success of the teachings of Jesus, through- 
out the ages following his death, we put this foremost, 
that as a scheme of Redemption it has found no match for 
moral influence, among schemes originating with either or 
all of one hundred of the most eminent religious, moral, 
and philanthropic leaders of mankind. 

We can never get the full measure and sweep of Christ's 
teachings, except as we take into view their relation to the 
dreary ages of history. The primitive man was brutal. 
During untold years, violence had reigned in the earth. 
This Nazarene peasant showed his relationship to the Eter- 
nal God — who foresaw the end from the beginning — when 
he brought a message of peace on the earth to the men of 
good will. And although ages swept onward before his 
ideal had a perceptible influence upon the nations, yet the 
illuminating spark of divine fire had fallen upon the earth. 
The Hebrew dream of a golden age to come, taking definite 
shape in the mandates of the Son of Man upon the horns of 
Hattim, marks an era in moral evolution which gives un- 
speakable dignity to Jesus, and sets him apart as the Moral 
Leader of mankind. The advancement of the Kingdom of 
God in the world so carries with it the influence of Jesus, 
that his name is exalted above every name. 

This arises mainly from the fact that in God's moral 
government of the world, the government was upon his 
shoulders, and Jesus was made the King of kings. The 
appearance of God in history, marked and decided as it 
was in the old dispensation, was so pronounced in the new 
age, that Jesus may be spoken of as the chief exponent or 

282 



THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHER. 

executive of the Kingdom of God for after times. He ex- 
pounded its theory, he made clear the principle of love 
which underlies every part of its movement. He established 
the Kingdom, as the leading power among the principali- 
ties of the world. It was the empire of righteousness, gain- 
ing sway in every quarter of the globe. 

" In all nations above the line of semi-barbarism," says 
Professor Talcott, " his law is to-day the acknowledged 
standard of right ; and in his name, professedly at least, 
kings reign and princes decree justice. Through influences 
going forth from him, whole races of men have been 
brought up from the depths of savage life. The annals of 
all time may be searched in vain for the record of such a 
change accomplished by any other agency. Every step of 
substantial moral progress recorded in the history of man- 
kind since his time, has had its origin in his teachings. 
This position which Jesus occupies in general history, is a 
position for which the whole preceding history of the world 
was a preparation. He is the central figure of all ages. Is 
it conceivable that such a position can have been allotted by 
an overruling Providence, or even by blind chance, to an 
imposter, or a fanatic, or a being that never existed but 
in fiction f 

" His Kingdom was to be established primarily in the 
hearts of individual men. To individuals the call was 
addressed to become his subjects ; to love him with a 
supreme affection, — and to take his life of labor and sacri- 
fice for the good of others as the model for their own lives. 
Individuals were brought under the influence of that love, 

283 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

which was manifested in giving his life a ransom for many. 
In whatever part of the world the words of Jesus have been 
made known, there have always been found hearts ready 
to receive them ; and to these they have become the me- 
dium of a new life. A New Style of Character has come 
into existence, — a character to which nothing more than a 
distant approximation has ever been witnessed in lands 
unvisited by revelation, and even that but rarely, — a char- 
acter the controlling element of which is supreme love to 
Christ, and love to man for Christ's sake, and which is 
uniformly referred, by all in whom it is exhibited, to the 
power of Christ- working in them. This character, in its 
distinctive features and in its practical manifestations, is 
essentially the same in every land, and has been so in every 
generation. The personal experience connected with it is 
corroborated by the testimony of millions upon millions, 
living or dead, representing every century, every race of 
men, every grade of cultivation, every form and aspect of 
human life ; all agreeing in this one thing, — the spirit of 
loving trust in Jesus and of hearty obedience to his law." * 
If I may still cite testimonies, let it be Frances Power 
Cobbe : — " The coming of Jesus was to the life of human- 
ity, what regeneration is to the individual. The world has 
changed, and that change is historically traceable to 
Christ." 



* These two paragraphs are adapted to these pages, from a series of 
valuable articles in the Christian Mirror, a few years since, by Professor 
D. S. Talcott, D. D., of Bangor Seminary. 

284 



THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHER. 

" The moral civilization of the world," says Professor 
Andrews Norton, " the noblest conception which men have 
entertaitfed of religion, of their nature, of their duties, are 
to be traced back directly to Jesus Christ." * 

" In him is centered all that is good and exalted in our 
nature. Whatever may be the unlooked for phenomena of 
the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will 
grow forever. All ages will say, that among the sons of 
men none has ever been greater than Jesus." f 

" The idea of Jesus," says Bishop Brooks, " is the illumi- 
nation and the inspiration of existence. Without it, moral 
life becomes a barren expediency, and social life a hollow 
shell, and emotional life a meaningless excitement, and in- 
tellectual life an idle play and stupid drudgery. Without 
it the world is a puzzle, and death a horror, and eternity a 
blank. More and more it shines as the only hope of what 
without it is all darkness." 

Well then may we say, that "Christ can no more be 
expelled from the course of history than the sun from the 
circle of the sky. Skepticism about Christ is also skepti- 
cism about history itself ; unbelief in him is unbelief in the 
controlling ideas by which men have been inspired, and in 
the chief objects for which men have hitherto lived." J 

*" I believe in Christ, 'the life: I think that is my whole creed." 
— W. D. Howells. 

" At the basis of our modern civilization lies the thought of Jesus." — 
De Pressense\ 

fThe close of Kenan's Life of Jesus. 
% Professor Henry B. Smith, D.D. 

285 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

"Christ," says our Germanic American scholar, Philip 
Schaff, "is the glory of the past, the life of the present, 
the hope of the future."* 

There can, indeed, be no more fitting simile than that of 
Dr. Samuel Harris : — "A god of the Scandinavian mythol- 
ogy was challenged to a race and was outrun ; his competi- 
tor in the race had been Human Thought. In all which 
pertains to man's moral and spiritual life, Christ has been 
tested in the race with human thought for eighteen hundred 
years, and has been always in advance ; and by his spiritual 
quickening of men, it is he himself who has given to human 
thought its power and speed." 

[ ESUS did not angrily chafe, nor contend with ignomin- 
+J ious contemporaries who contradicted his doctrine ; he 
left the truth to do its own work, to be energized by the 
Divine Spirit, and to win its way. The words of Jesus in 
Galilee, in Judea, on the coasts of Sidon, were powers such 
as had never appeared before upon this globe. Jesus 
calmly waited in view of their final triumph. Within the 
bosom of the Son of Man dwelt the peaceful Dove of God. 
A Divine Life reigned in all his human faculties. 

"Every man," said Jesus, "that hath heard, and hath 



* << Whatever progress mankind may make, they can never outrun the 
teaching of Christ." — E. S. Gannett, D.D. 

"Humanity, as it passes through phase after phase of historical 
merit, may advance indefinitely in excellence, but its advance will be an 
indefinite approximation of the Christian type. " — Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. 

286 



THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHER. 

learned of the Father, cometh unto me." The men who are 
attracted to God, and who have religious longing, and who 
are taught of the Father, will certainly go to Christ as the 
religious leader of the world. 

The Golden Rule will yet cut off all the tyrants and all 
oppressors, and bring in the Golden Age. As the drops of 
rain and the sunbeams make the grass blades and leaf and 
flower and fruit adorn our raw hillsides, and clothe the 
naked earth, so will the wilderness and solitary place be 
glad for the words of Jesus as for the water of life ; and 
the desert shall blossom as the rose. Distant rivers of the 
earth, with uncouth, savage names, will roll as with the 
sweet music of Jordan in a purified world. And places of 
worship, sacred as the hill of God, will rise among the 
barbaric villages of far off continents. 

So all the world is looking unto Jesus, the author and 
finisher of our faith ; he who was the beginning and the 
ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come.* 



* N. B. — For further illustration of this topic, Jesus as a Teacher, the reader 
is directed to the Article by Professor Fisher upon the Seed-like Character 
of the teachings of Jesus, page Jfi2 ; to Dr. Strong's Article, page 506 ; 
to Dr. Huntington's Article, page 519 ; and to Dr. Dorchester's 
Article, page 566. 



^S| 



287 



BOOK SEVEN. 



+£&frt&- 



Our Suffering Saviour, 



-**>*I51fr<s* 



Chapter 1. Page 289. 

Entering the Shadows. 

Chapter 2. Page 299. 

The Hea.ven.l3r Vine and. Bread.. 

Chapter 3. Page 309. 

The Awful Night in Gethsemane, 

Chapter 4. Page 320. 

The Midnight Hour. 

Chapter 5. Page 326. 

A. Triumphant Mob. 

Chapter 6. Page 338. 

The Darkness at Noonday, 



CHAPTER ONE. 

Entering the Shadows. 

^s^^ 

(^ I HE shadow of the cross was never far from falling 
4 1 on the footsteps of Jesus. The conflict of ideas 
^iJL between the Man of Sorrows and those who were in 
authority, began before the twelve were chosen, and before 
the second preaching tour through Galilee. It related to 
works of mercy upon the Sabbath day. Glimpses of Geth- 
semane, the betrayal, and the judgment hall, began to 
dawn dimly * upon the mind of Jesus, long before he went 
up to Jerusalem — as if going into the valley of the shadow 
of death. Nor did he flinch from the baptism of suffering, 
which awaited him. f 

When an eager and sanguine disciple could ill bear the 
thought that his Master should be manifested as a suffering 
Messiah, the great lawgiver of Israel and the chief of the 

* Jesus as a child came to his knowledge a little at a time, growing in 
wisdom ; it must have been so in his manhood. Before he began his 
ministry he did not know so minutely as he did after a year or two, just 
the effect his teaching would have upon the enraged rabbis. 

f Luke xii : 50. Consult also John iii : 14 ; Matt, xvi : 21 ; and 
xvii : 22, 23 ; Mark x : 32 ; Matt, xx : 28 ; and xxvi : 2 ; John xii : 23, 
24 ; and vi : 51. 

[Book VII.] 289 19 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

prophets appeared in a flood of celestial glory, upon the 
slopes of Hermon, to converse with Jesus about his decease 
so near at hand ; thus surrounding that dread event with 
ineffable light. To this grand climax of the centuries of 
Jewish history, the Law and the Prophets had pointed. 

In ascending from Caesarea Philippi, Jesus and the three 
disciples had picked their way amid the vineyards, the 
wheat fields, and the orchards ; and in the falling day, ere 
plunged into a ravine with its screening oaks, they paused 
to look at the rose and red of sunset, and the light on the 
western sea. In the early part of the night the disciples 
slept, while Jesus prayed. When they were awake, they 
saw his glory, and his very garments shone like heavenly 
raiment. So were the chief apostles strengthened, against 
the time when their faith would be sore tempted. And in 
the morning light they returned to the Roman city, where 
pagan images stood upon the street corners : and here Jesus 
cast out devils ; not however casting out that Roman devil, 
which later on served as the instrument of his crucifixion. 

THERE is a tragic interest in the story of the Feast of the 
Tabernacles in the autumn before the death of Jesus. 
He had already begun to avoid his enemies by retiring to 
northern Galilee, in order that he might be free to give fur- 
ther instruction to his disciples, and fulfill his mission — 
until his time should come. He went privately up to the 
feast. And there he cried earnestly : "If any man thirst, 
let him come unto me, and drink " ; and again, he pro- 
claimed himself "the Light of the world." 

290 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. 

It was an hour of peril. His enemies, again and again, 
sought to take him. And in his encounters with them, he 
alluded to their seeking to kill him, and even to their cruci- 
fying him ; and he had finally to conceal himself, to avoid 
being stoned.* 

WHEN the springtime approached, the resurrection of 
Lazarus brought about a crisis. 
The secluded home at Bethany had become a house of 
sorrow. Jesus was beyond Jordan. The domestic servants 
had often gone down the road looking eastward, to see if 
Jesus were coming up from the wilderness. When our 
Lord approached the town, he saw, amid scattering olives, 
oaks, and palms, certain tombs that had been cut from the 
limestone ledges near his pathway ; and there were broken 
bowlders, and shrubs of the almond, or the pomegranate. 
And here he waited the coming of the mourners, that he 
might see them apart from professional wailers, whose 
sharp outcries and conventional lamentations jarred upon 
his sense of fitting serenity at the graveside. Nor did Mary 
need to go to her brother's grave, to weep there, since he, who 
was the Resurrection and the Life, had also come hither. 
Jesus wept ; being troubled, and groaning in spirit, — tak- 
ing upon himself domestic sorrows. He, however, who 
wept as a man, now spoke like a God, f calling in a loud 

* John vii : 30, 44-46 ; and viii : 40 ; xxviii : 59. 
f Archbishop Leighton. 

291 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

voice to awaken him who was sleeping. And he that was 
dead came forth. 

Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, believed 
on Jesus ; " they had come as the merciful, and they ob- 
tained mercy." Yet some went away to the Pharisees, who 
would not believe on Jesus, though one rose from the dead. 
They did not deny the miracle,* but they were politicians, 
affirming that if Jesus gained a greater following, it would 
displease the Romans ; and they decided under the counsel 
of the high priest to put him to death whenever he might 
be found, — and it was thought that he might appear at the 
passover. 

This miracle so notable, placing beyond all doubt the 
divine calling of Jesus, f determined the adversaries of the 
Messiah to put Jesus to death : and, a little later, to kill 
Lazarus also, through whom many went away to believe 
on Jesus. 

CROM that day forth, it is said, they took counsel together 
I to put him to death. Jesus, therefore, walked no more 
openly among the Jews, but went thence into a country 
near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there 

*Johnxi: 47-50, 56, 57. 

-j- The raising of the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of 
Nain, and of Lazarus, proceeded upon what Archbishop Trench has 
called "an ascending scale of difficulty"; since it was, in Bengel's 
phrase, raising the dead " from the bed, the bier, the grave " (Matt, ix : 
25 ; Luke vii : 14 ; John xi : 44), — one just dead, one about to be buried, 
one after the funeral. This was conclusive, clinching testimony, to the 
message of Jesus. 

292 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. 

continued with his disciples. It was a day's journey thither, 
upon the Jordan road north ; along the eastern slope of 
the table-land of Palestine, — between the populous villages 
and the river ravine. Although there were vines and fig 
trees, with now and then an orchard of olives, yet for the 
most part the obscure and crooked path passed over bare 
ledges or along ragged cliffs, sometimes under the shadow 
of towering crags, — a world of stone. They encountered 
bowlders, fragments of rock, or areas of smoothed pebbles ; 
and when they paused by the wayside, it was to find some 
rocky tomb, or a cave that had been the haunt of robbers, 
or used as a hiding place from invaders. They sometimes 
crossed wild ravines upon glistening and slippery rocks, 
where winter torrents were pouring. It was everywhere 
a lonely landscape, made memorable by ages of Jewish 
history. Yet these desolate hills were less inhospitable than 
Mount Zion. They found the miniature city, with its tower 
and its houses of stone, occupying the top of a conical hill ; 
and here Jesus remained with the twelve, for forty days. 

After which, the time having come when all things that 
were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man 
should be accomplished, Jesus told the twelve what was 
about to occur,* and that it was in accordance with the 
ancient prophecies of a Suffering Saviour. Yet the mock- 
ing, the scourging, and the spiteful treatment, his death 
and resurrection, that he told of, they could not understand. 
It was, they said, some parable of occult meaning. 

*Luke xviii: 31-34. 

293 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

As they passed through Jericho, upon their way to 
Jerusalem to attend the passover, Zaccheus became a dis- 
ciple, and Bartimeus was healed. These lessons of sharp 
decision, and of importunity, have made the site of Jericho 
memorable throughout the world.* 

" To thy garments we will cling, 
All our need before thee bring ; 
Son of David, hear our cry, 
Pass not, pass not by." 

At Bethany, Jesus was anointed for his burial. She who 
had sat at Jesus' feet to learn of him, and who had fallen at 
his feet in her hour of grief, now poured upon his feet that 
precious ointment, whose odor has gone forth throughout 
the world, f " While the victories of many kings and gen- 



* " It is now difficult," says Dr. William Hanna, " to determine 
the site of the city ; so little is left of it, — its hippodrome and amphitheater, 
its towers and its palaces. Its gardens and its groves are gone ; not one 
solitary palm tree for a blind beggar to sit beneath, nor a sycamore for 
anyone to climb. The City of Fragrance it was called of old. There 
remains now but the fragrance of those deeds of grace and mercy done 
there by him, who in passing through it closed his earthly journeyings, 
and went thence to Jerusalem to die." 

f"Mary arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, 
and came softly behind Jesus, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and 
poured the precious perfume first over his head, then over his feet ; while 
the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the fragrance." — 
Dean Farrar. 

The sharp comment of St. John (xii : 4-6) upon the speech of Judas 
on this occasion, has led the Scotch preacher, Dr. John Ker, to say : 
" Judas the thief takes the side of poverty that he may plunder it." And 
and it also led the quaint Quesnel to say (referring also to John xvii : 12, 

294 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. 

erals," says St. Chrysostom, "are lost in silence, and many 
who have founded states and reduced nations to subjection 
are not known by name, the pouring of ointment by this 
woman is celebrated throughout the whole world ; the 
memory of the deed hath not waned away." 

THE first day of that week, which has been so fittingly 
called the holy of holies of Christ's life,* was the day 
when the Mosaic law set apart the paschal lamb for sacri- 
fice, — fitting day to designate in some marked manner the 
Lamb of God, for the coming sacrifice. It was the day of 
the triumphant entry into Jerusalem ; an expression of the 
popular applause for the raising of Lazarus, f which left 
now no room to doubt that the Messiah had come. It was 
the only time in which Jesus bore part in a great public dis- 
play : it was to draw the more emphatic attention, by con- 
trast, to what was so soon to follow. J 

" Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates. 
Behold, the King of glory waits ; 
The King of Kings is drawing near, 
The Saviour of the world is here."§ 

and John x : 28, 29) : " Christ trusts a thief with his money, because he 
sets no value on it ; but he keeps souls in his own custody. He suffers his 
money to be stolen from him, but never his sheep." 

* Olshausen. f This is particularly noted, — John xii : 17,18. 

X " What he was then, when he rode in triumph into Jerusalem, that 
is he now to us this day, — a king, meek and lowly, and having salvation, 
the head and founder of a kingdom which can never be moved." — 
Charles Kingsley. 

§ Georg Weissel, 1630. Lyra Germanica. 

295 



OUR ELDKKT BROTHER. 

In riding over the southern slope of Olivet, Jesus could 
not see the "City of the Great King," till he reached that 
point where the path turns north. The glory * of the city 
moved the Redeemer to tears for its pending doom.f The 
Shechina, said the rabbis, J had retired to the Mount of 
Olives, and there for three years had called in vain to the 
people to repent ; and had then withdrawn forever. As 
Jesus when a child had seen the birds of prey, so now he 
saw the gathering of the eagles of Rome about the devoted 
city. " Thou shalt be oppressed and spoiled evermore, and 
no man shall save thee." 

For Jerusalem are tears ; 

Thus for man God's love appears : 

Warning words the sinner hears. 



* " The great wall of the temple enclosure," says Geikie, " now bur- 
ied under a hundred feet of rubbish on the east side, stood up fresh from 
the hands of the builder, in its vast height ; the eastern side of Mount 
Moriah and the bed of the Kedron were rich with vegetation, and the 
slopes around were dotted with great mansions embosomed in verdure ; 
the broader level below the pool of Siloam was a paradise of waving 
green ; and the temple courts rose, one over the other, in dazzling white, 
— the temple itself, of snowy white set off with flashing gold, surmount- 
ing all." 

f " Upon Palm Sunday, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, 
and was adorned with the acclamations of a king and a God, he wet the 
palms with his tears, sweeter than the drops of manna or the little pearls 
of heaven that descended upon Mount Hermon ; weeping in the midst of 
this triumph, over obstinate, perishing, and malicious Jerusalem." — 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 

% Referring to Ezk. xi : 23 : « < The glory of the Lord went up from 
the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east 
side of the city." 

296 



THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. 

Haste, Jerusalem, to turn, — 
Lest thy gates in anger burn ; 
Penitent, thy lesson learn. 

Thy Redeemer's tears have wet 
Cheeks where love and grief have met : 
Haste to pay, of love, thy debt. 

Love unknown,- — *tis mercy's hour ; 

Clouds above thy head now lower : 

Do not crown with thorns God's power. 

Doom for sin has loud out-pealed ; 
Fate for sin is ever sealed : 
Penitent, — thy sins are healed. 



THE second cleansing of the temple occurred the day 
following. And for it Jesus was sharply questioned 
by the rabbis next day, Tuesday of passion week. "All 
the world is gone after him," they said ; and they demanded 
by what authority he took such a course. And all day 
long, he foiled his adversaries in sharp question, and quick 
reply.* 

All the people came early in the morning to him in the 
temple ; and they heard the parable of the two sons, of the 
wicked husbandmen, and of the wedding garment, — and 
they heard the Saviour's condemnation of the Pharisees. 

When certain Greeks desired to see him, Jesus thought 
at once of the far reaching influence of his passion in 



* John xii : 19 ; Matt, xxi : 23 ; and xxii : 15-46. 

297 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

drawing all men to himself.* Yet his soul was so full of 
his approaching sacrifice, that he was speechless through 
sorrow ; nor could he continue to speak without first break- 
ing forth into an agonized prayer like that of Gethsemane. 

Upon returning to Bethany at nightfall, Jesus paused 
upon the ridge of Olivet, and looked back upon the city, 
and told his disciples of the woes to come upon it, and pro- 
nounced judicial condemnation upon the leaders of the 
people. 

The day following, while Judas was plotting to betray 
innocent blood, Jesus remained at Bethany ; where he 
abode until near the evening hour of Thursday, — when he 
went to Jerusalem to observe the feast of the passover with 
his disciples. \ 

* It has been noted by Gerhaedt that the wise men of the Orient 
came to see Jesus at the sunrise of his life ; and that now these men of 
the Occident came, desiring to see him, as his sun was about to set. 

f For Bishop Ryle's remarks upon the Lord's Supper, which was instl' 
tuted at this feast, see page 580. 




298 




CHAPTER TWO. 

The Heavenly Vine and Bread. 

-sMfc-* 

"PON the rising of the paschal moon, a fire was kin- 
dled upon the Mount of Olives, and corresponding 
fires were instantly kindled upon hilltops 
eastward, — till a line of fire flashed from 
Jerusalem to Babylon. During a thousand years, the smoke 
of the paschal sacrifice had ascended from the sacred city. 
Josephus reports the number of paschal lambs sacrificed, 
between three and five o'clock in the afternoon, to be more 
than a quarter of a million, and the attendance upon the 
feast of the passover more than two and a half millions of 
worshipers. Tents and booths and the gay colors of the 
children of the Orient covered the entire region, — the 
gardens, the vineyards, the olive groves, and the sides of 
the mountains round about Jerusalem. The air was filled 
with the songs of Zion : "Let Zion rejoice ; let the daugh- 
ters of Israel be glad." All this multitude of people rose up 
one day, and sacrificed Jesus as the Paschal Lamb. They 
were for the moment of one accord, with few dissenting 
voices, — a few hundreds out of the millions. As a sheep 
before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. 

[Book VU.] 299 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

It was the boast of the city that no one ever failed of 
finding a hearty hospitality, and the disciples of our Lord 
found an upper room, where they might eat their bitter 
herbs and unleavened bread, — while contending who should 
be greatest in the Kingdom of the Messiah now so near at 
hand. Here too their Saviour taught them concerning the 
spiritual nature of his Kingdom ; and gave them a lesson in 
humility by washing their feet, so travel sore in his serv- 
ice, — and even washing from the feet of Judas the dust 
which he had gathered by walking between the murderers 
and their victim. 

Jesus, who knew what was in man, who perceived the 
thoughts of his adversaries, had long ago read the char- 
acter of Judas, — and he had spoken of it a year and a half 
before the betrayal ; indeed, says John, Jesus knew it from 
the beginning.* "Now is the Son of Man glorified,' 7 said 
Jesus, when Judas went forth to perform quickly what he 
had the heart to do. For the Master had said to him, 
"That thou doest, do quickly." So (says John Angell 
James), "Jesus made haste to the cross, impatient for the 
hour of sacrifice." 



* St. Cyprian has called attention to the patience of Jesus, in not 
openly pointing out Judas by name, when he knew that he was a traitor. 
Edersiieim and others note that the conversations at the paschal table, 
relating to Judas, were uttered in a low tone, — Matt, xxvi : 25, and John 
xiii: 26. 

" Jesus knew from the beginning," — that is, from the beginning of 
Judas' thought to betray his Lord. It does not refer to the time when 
Jesus — after a night of prayer — chose Judas for one of his disciples ; he 
would not have deliberately picked out a traitor. Vide John vi : 64, 

300 



THE PASCHAL FEAST. 

IT was after this, that the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper 
was instituted with the eleven. How tenderly they 
loved him. The mutual affection between Christ and St. 
John and its attitude of familiarity was of no sudden 
growth. If Jesus had not placed his arm about the reclin- 
ing John, and drawn him tenderly to himself, the beloved 
disciple would hardly have ventured on so close approach, — 
with loving eyes looking up into the loving eyes of Jesus. 
Christ was upborne, and carried forward by the love of his 
disciples. Yearning for the voice of kindness and the touch 
of friendly hands, he whom the world hated was com- 
forted by the manifestation of human love. 

" With desire," said Jesus, "I have desired to eat this 
passover with you before I suffer." 

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when 
he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave to them, saying, 



and compare verses 60, 61 ; by which it appears that the true character of 
certain disciples was now — by their own conduct and choice — discovered 
to themselves and to Jesus. John xiii : 18, 19, is to be explained in the 
same way. 

It was when Jesus foresaw the despair of Judas, that he quoted from 
the book of Enoch, which was then much read, declaring that it would 
have been better for him if he had never been born. But he who had 
already washed the feet of Judas would have pardoned him, if, instead of 
hanging himself, he had appeared at the cross in true penitence and faith 
like the dying thief. 

There is a touch of pathos in the record of John, that when Judas 
had received the sop from his Master, he " went immediately out, — and 
it was night." It was indeed night, a chill falling upon all the world. 
"A night," says Quesnel, " the most criminal, dreadful, and dark, and 
yet the most holy, hopeful, and bright." 

301 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

This is my body which is given for you, this do in remem- 
brance of me. 

"And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, 
saying, Drink ye all of it ; for this is my blood of the cove- 
nant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins." 

The significance of these words was better understood 
after his death. He spoke of a present transaction, or one 
about to be : " This my body," is being given, is being 
broken. "This my blood," is being shed.* 

As the disciples had failed to understand repeated allu- 
sions to his death, so now our Saviour's instruction had to be 
limited to the capacity of his hearers to comprehend his 
words. When, however, he spoke of his blood as the 
token of a new covenant, shed for many for the remission 
of sins, they must have classified this saying with his giving 
his life a ransom for many ; f that i s > as "the blood of the 
paschal lamb redeemed the ancient people of God, so now 
his own blood would have redemptive power in a new cove- 
nant adapted to world-wide sinners. 

Thou Wine of God, in red outflow, 
Now quench in me my thirst so deep ; 

I long at last my God to know, 
As o'er my sins I sigh and weep. 

Thou Bread of God, so sweet thy taste, 

In hunger keen I seek for thee ; 
All other food I count but waste, — 

Thy strength supports and comforts me. 

*EDERbHEIM. 

f Matt, xxvi : 28 ; Matt, xx : 28. 

302 



THE PASCHAL FEAST. 

The simple rite instituted by Christ has no more literal 
significance than when he said, "I am the vine," or " I am 
the door." This sacrament was our Lord's own comment 
upon that discourse which so stumbled the Jews,* about 
eating his flesh and drinking his blood : no feast of kings, 
no feast of angels, so costly as this. 

One element in this new covenant is that of binding the 
disciples to each other and to their Lord. Eating bread to- 
gether, they are to stand by each other, and to stand by 
Christ, and he by them, f 

The Lord's Supper, in its first observance, marks the 
birthday of organized Christianity. This with its corre- 
sponding symbol, Christian baptism, holds us "in com- 
munion with all the people of God in times past and 
present, amid changes of all other customs." J 

The world-wide sweep of this ordinance, established by 
Jesus upon the night before his death, is illustrated by a 
communion service held not long since in India, in a chapel 
of the American Board. Here a Brahman sat beside a 
pariah, a representative of the English nobility and mili- 
tary officers in full dress by the side of men whose clothing 
was not worth half a dollar ; here were the lame, and per- 
sons from an almshouse, and converted Mohammedans, and 

* John vi: 54. 

f Dr. William Thomson, the Syrian missionary, suggests this ; who 
adds, that the orientals complain of the occidentals for having no "bread 
and salt covenants," — of whose virtue, as a bond between men, romantic 
tales abound in the East. 

% Nehemiah Adams, D.D. 

303 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Scotchmen, and Americans ; some wore turbans of various 
colors, and some left their sandals at the door ; some sat on 
the floor, some on benches, and some sat cross-legged ; and 
there was one man there who had committed perhaps 
twenty murders, — and yet the blood of Christ availed for 
all ; and it was a common bond between them, as well as 
between them and their Lord. 

" As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do 
show the Lord's death till he come : " — 

" Until the trump of God be heard, 
Until the ancient graves be stirred, 
And with the great, commanding word, 
The Lord shall come." * 

"The body of Christ," says Calvin, f "is not brought 
down into the sacrament ; but the soul of him who par- 
takes thereof is raised by faith towards heaven, and is 
there brought into contact with the body of Christ, and 
thus made a partaker of the divine life." These words are 
however but another way of expressing the spirituality of 
Christ's own words. Those who have love in their hearts 
will behold him in the breaking of bread ; and they will 
receive from him the priceless treasure of his love. So an 
oriental king is said to have given precious gifts to those 
who discerned him, when he went into a company in form 
invisible to ordinary sight ; it being said that those favored 
ones could see him, because they had love in their hearts 
for him. 

*Lyra Eucharistica. 
f A summary of his words, by Planck. 

304 



THE PASCHAL FEAST. 

THE artless * discourse of Jesus after the supper, and the 
prayer he uttered, are kept in the affectionate remem- 
brance of God's people in all ages, being the dying words 
of that Friend which sticketh closer than a brother, f 

Many of these words of Jesus could not have been clear 
to the disciples at the hour. Not yet did they apprehend 
that their king would be crucified ; but now they knew that 
they would be separated from him for a time at least. His 
allusions to the Father's love, and to the privilege of prayer, 
they did understand at once. 

It is believed that the upper room where they were, was 
the same room where the pentecostal descent of the Holy 
Spirit took place, — in the house of the mother of St. Mark. 
Whether this be so or not, the promise of the Comforter, by 
him who was a comforter beyond any the world had seen 
before, is one of the most notable things he uttered ; indi- 
cating, as it did, that the present work of Jesus was but an 
initial one, that the Kingdom of God was to be carried to a 
triumphant issue by the Holy Spirit, — who was to be a 
way-leader J into all truth, — testifying to the Christ, who 

* The simplicity of this farewell address is illustrated, says Tholuck, 
by John xiv : 2, 3, 16, 18, 21, 23 ; and John xvi : 23, 24, 26. 

f In John's Gospel, the 14th chapter appears to have been spoken at 
the table ; chapters 15-17 were uttered, it is likely, in the same room, 
rather than upon the street or even in some secluded spot upon the slopes 
approaching Gethsemane, where they would have been liable to early dis- 
turbance. Indeed, a solitary place outside of the garden itself must have 
been hard to find, amid the booths and tents of passover week. 

$ EdersheiM. 

305 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

had come forth from the Father and who was about to 
return to the Father. 

It is the total impression of this farewell discourse, that 
it is of a piece with the Old Testament in its representations 
of the love of God. The disciples must have recalled those 
precious words : — 

" I have loved thee with an everlasting love." " Can a 
women forget her suckling child ? She may forget ; yet 
will I not forget thee." "I have graven thee upon the 
palms of my hands." " I will never leave thee, nor forsake 
thee." " In thine affliction, I am afflicted." 

Jesus stood for the unity of God's self -revelation of love 
inexpressible : God is love.* And at this supreme moment 
Jesus imparted to his disciples his own joy and deep seated 
peace, — "my peace I give unto you." f 

And then, just as he was going forth to agonize with the 
Father alone in Gethsemane, he uttered those triumphant 
words, "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." 

* It is impossible to emphasize this point too strongly. Jesus himself 
was but the expression of God's affection for the human race. The entire 
mission of the Saviour, his life, his death, was a failure, unless in it there 
was brought into the world the idea of a loving Father, anguished over the 
sins of men. 

" In Christ, God reveals his love as entirely self -moved. Man is not 
required to do anything to kindle loving-kindness in the heart of God ; if 
loving-kindness and mercifulness are not eternal in God, nothing which 
man can do could create them there : he might as well suppose that it 
depends on him to kindle sunbeams in the sun ; God's love in its over- 
flowing fullness pours forth like the sunshine, illuminating and quickening 
the universe, and therein revealing God." — Samuel Harris, LL.D. 

f " These are last words, as one who is about to go away, and says 
1 Good night,' or gives his blessing." — Luther. 

306 



THE PASCHAL FEAST. 

And he who had been born in a stable now made to his 
disciples a promise of heavenly mansions. And he who 
was to die on the morrow at the beck of more than two 
millions of his countrymen, addressed a small band of his 
followers who were to be scattered within an hour, — " Be of 
good cheer, I have overcome the world." He had indeed 
conquered ; and the victory was to be his, throughout all 
ages, until time shall be no more. 

THE seventeenth chapter of John was read to John Knox 
daily, during his last sickness ; and Bossuet had it 
read to him threescore times, when upon his bed of dying.* 

It is the only prayer of Jesus, on record, — unless of one 
clause, or in the Lord's prayer. The hour had come ; his 
mission as the Giver of eternal life — the knowledge of God 
— was now about to be finished : conscious of the glory that 
should follow his sacrifice, his words read like a snatch 
from a poem out of paradise ; filled as it is with thought at 
high range, befitting the Son of God. He prayed for the 
unity of his disciples, and for their sanctification in the 
truth, and for those who, in all after ages, should believe 
through their testimony. 

And in this prayer, Jesus anticipated the vital union of 
the disciples with himself in future eons of bliss ; a union 

* These incidents beautifully illustrate the 20th verse, " Neither 
pray I for these alone." 

When Knox became a Protestant, he said that he first cast anchor in 
the seventeenth of John ; here he found something for his troubled souJ 
to hold by. 

sor 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

appropriately symbolized by the Unity of the Blessed Trinity, 
"As thou art in me," "that they may be one in us " : so 
should they be made the sharers of his glory. "Father, I 
will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me 
where I am." 

Day has touched the heavenly hills, 
We are free from earthly ills ; 
Death is o'er and life begun, — 
Life is hid in God's own Son : 
Hallelujah. 

Time is past, and every sin, 
Through the gates we enter in ; 
Sing we then the newest song, — 
Praising Christ in tuneful throng : 
Hallelujah. 




308 



CHAPTER THREE. 

The Awful Night in Gethsemane 

— m •)* 

I IS midnight ; and on Olive's brow 
V. The star is dimmed that lately shone ; 
'Tis midnight ; and in the garden now, 
The suffering Saviour prays alone. 

" 'Tis midnight ; and from all removed, 
Immanuel wrestles lone with fears : 
E'en the disciple that he loved 

Heeds not his Master's grief and tears. 

" 'Tis midnight ; and for others' guilt, 
The Man of Sorrows weeps in blood ; 
Yet he that hath in anguish knelt 
Is not forsaken by his God. 

" 'Tis midnight ; and from ether-plains 
Is borne the song that angels know ; 
Unheard by mortals are the strains 

That sweetly soothe the Saviour's woe."* 

* William B. Tappan, a.d. 1819. 



[Book VII.] 309 




OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

HEIST Jesus had spoken these words,* and when 
they had sung an hymn,t he went forth as 
he was wont, over the brook Kedron to the 
Mount of Olives ; and his disciples also followed him. Then 
cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, 
where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his 
disciples. 

The present site of the garden, with its eight olive trees, 
sixteen or seventeen hundred years old, if not the original 
location, is but slightly to the south of it. In reaching it, 
the company came down four or rive hundred feet to the 
valley, crossed the stream, and then ascended perhaps two 
hundred and fifty feet. It was a private garden, whose 
honored and unknown owner was friendly to Jesus, who 
went there so often that Judas knew the place. There were 
sheepfolds on the slopes of Olivet, near by, bereft of their 
lambs for the passover ; and here he who was to be led as a 
lamb to the slaughter, sought to be alone for prayer, to 
fortify himself for the dread hour ; and that he might not 
be surprised at his devotions by the arrest so imminent, he 
set Peter and James and John to watch. And he was him- 
self so constantly upon the lookout, that whenever he had 
been alone a little while, he approached his sleeping night- 
guard to see whether Judas was not there too. 

* John xviii : 1 . 

f Probably the last part of the 118th Psalm, the close of the Hallel, 
the great song of praise to God, comprising Psalms cxv-cxviii, which was 
sung at the close of the passover ; as Fsalms cxiii-cxiv were sung at the 
beginning. 

310 



THE GARDEN OF THE LORD 

It seems likely that the disciples, within earshot, were 
so drowsy that they heard but a fragment of the broken 
prayers of Jesus, yet the keynote of the petition was thrice 
uttered ; though, after the first time, in slightly modified 
form. Even before he was quite alone with God, it is said 
that he began to be "sore amazed" or "troubled" (the 
word means separation from home at a time of trial), and 
"desolate" or "very heavy"; and he saith unto his dis- 
ciples, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful [" encompassed 
on all sides by grief," as if all God's waves had gone over 
him], even unto death." It was, says Bishop Lightfoot, 
a "confused, restless, half-distracted state which is pro- 
duced by physical derangement or mental distress."* He 
poured out his soul unto death. Incoherent anguish he 
knew, else could he never have been a sympathizing Sav- 
iour for groaning, sobbing human wretchedness, helpless 
and uttering piercing outcries to God. 

" The experience of Jesus," says President D wight, f " in 
its contrast with other hours before and after, the change of 
feeling from triumphant confidence and victorious calm- 
ness, is wonderful but not inexplicable. The closing hours 
of his work and life must, as it would seem, have been filled 
with thoughts moving outward and forward toward the 
great triumphs of his Kingdom in the coming years and 
ages, and also with thoughts of that mysterious trial of soul 

* Professor Edwards A. Park speaks of our Lord, in this hour, as 
" moving to and fro, now walking, now standing still, now falling down, 
now uttering broken prayers." 

f In the Sunday School Times. 

311 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

which was so soon to be undergone. The alternations from 
one to the other must have been frequent and sudden. The 
dark hours and the light hours must have drawn closely 
together." 

"As an exegetical question," says Dr. Samuel T. Spear,* 
" there can be no reasonable doubt that he referred to the cup 
of his sufferings and death on the cross, which he saw to 
be immediately impending, and of which he then, for some 
reason, had a vivid, appalling, and overwhelming vision. 
His human nature, for the moment, shuddered and shrank 
under that terrible apprehension, and was moved to its pro- 
foundest depths." 

The sensitive mind of Jesus foreknew his end, and all the 
fore-shadows fell upon Gethsemane. Amid the dark brown 
trunks of the olive trees, and their quivering gray leaves, 
in the light of the full moon, he saw that scene so soon to 
appear on Golgotha. There was a physical shrinking ; 
arising perhaps from physical exhaustion, f A lifeless 
pallor overspread his face, as he stood before God alone, 
in the dimly lighted darkness that shrouded Gethsemane. 

No argument of reason, no strength of faith, nor ardor 
of hope can remove the instinctive horror which repels the 
thought of personally undergoing death ; which in the case 



*In The Independent. 

f Jesus entered his work as a hard-handed and rugged day laborer, 
in the full maturity of early manhood ; yet, says Bushnell, "he put 
himself into his great ministry with such momentum and constancy, 
giving so much counsel, expending so much sympathy, suffering so great 
waste of sorrow, that he died like one ripened by full age." 

312 



THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. 

of Jesus was death in the midst of life, death by violence, 
death by protracted torture ; death associated with betrayal 
by one, denial by another, desertion by all, death accom- 
panied by calumnious accusation, malignant spite, and 
murderous frenzy, — death moreover as the representative 
of sinful men. In some mysterious manner he bore our 
guilt ; upon his spirit weighed the burden of our sinfulness, 
of which the most terrible proof was being given in his re- 
jection and murder. "The Lord hath laid upon Him the 
iniquity of us all/*' Death, too, in what seemed desertion 
by God, as though heaven was closed against him, — man 
murdering him, God forsaking him. His sensitive humanity 
shrank from such a cup.* 

This story is too true. It would never have been made 
up by men creating a myth ; it would have been deemed 
inconsistent with what went before it and the triumphant 
issue. If divine, Jesus was also human ; f and he broke down 
utterly. "The flesh will quiver, when the pincers tear:" 
and notwithstanding all the high courage of the Redeemer 
of the world up to the close of his public ministry, and the 
private discourse with his own, yet when he took a little 
time to be alone before the armed mob should be upon him, 



* This entire paragraph should be credited to the Rev. Newman 
Hall, LL.B. ; being culled, condensed, and adapted from the Doctor's 
paper upon " Christ's Prayer in Gethsemane," published in the Congrega- 
tionalist some years since. 

f " If Jesus Christ seemed to fear death, it was because he conde- 
scended to all the weakness of humanity; his body trembled, but his 
soul was immovable." — Voltaire. 

313 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he could but let fall drops of sweat, as if great drops of 
blood, and thrice beseech the Father, if possible, that he 
might be spared drinking the bitter cup of sorrow ; yet 
never failed this Son Divine to qualify his words in sweet 
submission, " As Thou wilt." 



WHEN Jesus, as child, youth, and man, began to enter- 
tain the idea of his Messianic mission, he knew that 
he was to be heavenly minded ; but he did not, at first,, 
know that he would be killed on that account. He was a 
holy child, pure as a lily, when he first encountered the 
rabbis at Jerusalem ; nor did he, for some time, suspect that 
his very innocence was against him, among the leaders of 
Israel. He never did a wrong act or was conscious of sin, 
— little apprehending that he would die between two 
thieves. He comforted every mourner, and he bore about 
with him light and love ; ncr did he think at first that he 
would be buffeted and spit upon by the " people of God." 

He came ultimately, however, to understand fully what 
would befall anyone who dared live at cross-purposes with 
the high priest and his unholy clique. And his gentle, lov- 
ing spirit recoiled in horror at the deliberate wickedness of 
hypocrites who thrust aside the rightful heir, and claimed 
God's heritage as their own. He who could look on no sin 
with allowance, he who was of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity, was clad in human form, with fleshly limitations ; 
and he recoiled from the ignominy of being caught like a 

314 



THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. 

criminal by a night search, and he shrank from encounter- 
ing demons who delighted in torture. 

What other was Gethsemane than the awaking of Jesus 
to the horrors of his situation ? While the disciples slept, 
he was wide awake to the reality of that which he had been 
dreaming about for years, — that human guilt, which had 
now gone so far.* He had been steadily looking forward 
to it, and now the children of Abraham had rejected their 
Messiah ; and their wickedness was to be consummated in 
that very hour. And the Friend of sinners could but be 
grieved that he found the earth in such condition ; since he 
knew that the ghastly cruelty of Rome, the ghoulish conduct 
of Jewish rabbis, and the satanic treachery of a disciple, 
were but an insignificant part of the woes of the world, 
crying unto heaven in ages past, in ages to come. 

Was it not this which gave a deadly sickening odor to 
that cup, which Jesus was now to refuse — or to drink? 
Well might he have deliberated a little, whether to commis- 
sion the twelve legions within call to come wheeling down 
upon the earth and make an end. He chose rather to suf- 
fer wrong, and he drained the cup. As the Son of the 
Highest, it remained for him to fulfill God's part, — the dis- 
play of ineffable love, patience, longsuffering, self-sacrifice. 
And this he did ; meeting with divine meekness the wrath 
of those sinners, into whose bloody hands he was falling. 



* " It was the burden and the mystery of the world's sin which lay 
heavy on his heart ; it was the tasting, in the divine humanity of a sinless 
life, the bitter cup which sin had poisoned." — Dean Faerae. 

315 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

OEKHAPS Gethsemane stands for far more. A veiling 
<V mist hangs low over the garden of our Saviour's sor- 
row, and all that passed we cannot know. He was 
interlocked with the guilt of the world. He alone knew 
what was in man, knew the depth of human sinfulness, 
and what it would lead to. Was there nothing more 
than grieving over the wickedness of the Jews in shedding 
innocent blood ? Was there nothing more than the agony 
of slighted love, the unmerited hatred of those he had 
sought to save ? Conscious of coming out of the eternities 
into time, and subjecting himself to earthly condition, did 
he find nothing worse than a bigoted Church ? 

He was no Jew, even at Gethsemane. The Lord laid on 
him the iniquity of us all. He was made sin for us ; at least 
in being treated like a sinner by men, and apparently for a 
moment abandoned by his God. The most guilty of the 
race could not have had, at the hands of God and man, any 
greater earthly punishment than was put upon him who 
was called the Lamb of God. 

We need not seek for the mysteries of the Atonement in 
the deep shadows of Gethsemane. The at-one-ment be- 
tween God and man, wrought out by the life and the death 
of Christ, is a far wider work than that expressed by the 
pangs of a moment in the Garden or upon the Cross. 
These incidents in the life of Jesus are but a part of one 
long humiliation, of sorrow unto death, to express Infinite 
horror and Infinite displeasure for the sins of men ; and 
Infinite love in bearing men's sins, in entering into the fel- 

316 



THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. 

lowship of all human wretchedness. A clear apprehension 
of this wrath of man in its vain contest with Infinite justice 
and love, was one of the constituents of our Saviour's cup 
at Gethsemane. 

IF it be possible," " If Thou wilt," cried Jesus. Had it 
been possible, it would have been done. The death 
of Jesus, prefigured in the paschal lamb, was needful 
to complete the Atonement. 

This was the message of the angel, if one appeared to 
strengthen Jesus ; indeed, the * angel was depicted upon 
canvas, some centuries since, as exhibiting the cross to our 
Redeemer in the garden.* 

This is indicated by a certain acquiescence in the second 
prayer : " O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, 
except I drink it, thy will be done." The depth of the 
Saviour's anguish is indicated in that his resignation in 
the second prayer needed to be wrought over again in the 
third ; he whose voice had quieted the storms of Gen- 
nesaret, now calling upon God to still the tempest in his 
heart. 

So, St. Paul says, Jesus " learned " obedience by the 
things which he suffered. Aside from the Temptation of 
our Lord, he passed through no trial that so touches upon 
the experience of every disciple as this. The Garden, too, 

* Luke xxii : 43, 44, are left out of manuscripts most ancient. " We 
may," however, "well believe that every listening angel around the 
throne was melted to tears, when three times < O my Father, if it be pos- 
sible,' escaped from the lips of the Son of God." — J. L. Withrow, D.D. 

317 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

throws light upon the Wilderness. He must have had a 
certain shrinking from becoming a Man of Sorrows, when 
he laid out his course as to the conduct of the Messianic 
Kingdom. Yet he never wavered in loyalty to the Father's 
will and the ancient Scriptural text. 

Indeed the most marvelous part of this story is the 
record * that Jesus, after his arrest, bade Peter put up his 
sword, reminding him of angelic succor hard by, — " But 
how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must 
be ? " " The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I 
not drink it ? " f This shows conclusively what was the 
nature of the "cup," as well as the settled determination 
of Jesus to leave the squadrons of angels in the sky, while 
he himself should be "cut off" according to Daniel ix : 26 ; 
and fulfill the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah liii : 5-9. J 

When we ask then as to Jesus in Gethsemane, — 

" Will he not lift up 
His lips from the bitter cup ; 
His brows from the dreary weight, 
His hands from the clenching cross ? ' ' § 

we know what will be the outcome. His mental discom- 
posure passed by. This was the form in which the Father 
answered his prayers. || " The real purpose of that prayer," 

* Matt, xxvi : 52-54. f John xviii : 11 . 

% Compare Mark ix : 12 ; and Luke xxiv : 26, 27 ; and 44-46 ; also 
Acts xvii : 2, 3 ; and xxvi : 22, 23 ; I. Cor. xv : 3. 

§ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, — The Seraphim. 

|| Compare Hebrews v : 7, where it is said that the prayer of Jesus 
was heard. 

318 



THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. 

says Bascom, "was inner strength, a renewed sense of the 
divine presence, a thorough reconciliation to the divine 
method." 

God took the bitterness out of the cup ; removing the 
sharpness of the agony, and granting him a quiet mind ; 
yet leaving him the cross. He was delivered from the fear 
of the cross. " A stream of eternal peace," says Lange, 
"wells forth from his most arduous conflict in Gethsemane ; 
the accursed tree itself becomes a mark of honor, when his 
holy hand touches it."* The last words of Jesus at the 
Lord's Table were virtually the last in Gethsemane, — 
"That the world may know that I love the Father ; and as 
the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." 

After Gethsemane, the worst was over, — until he came 
to drink the dregs of the cup, in the dull and hopeless 
physical pain, and the spiritual bereavement of his last 
conscious hours upon the cross. 



* So what the first Adam lost in the garden of Eden, the Second 
Adam gained in the garden of Gethsemane. — Suggested by Edersheim. 



319 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Midnight Hour. 

<s?^^s? 

(^ I HE inexpressible distance between Jesus and his dis- 
4 I ciples is indicated by the sleep of Peter, James, and 
®LL. John, when they were on guard in the garden of 
the Saviour's sorrow. His human nature had sought their 
sympathy ; in the hour of darkness that could be felt, he 
desired to know that friends were near.* Yet Jesus needed 
not to say, " Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray." In 
those desolate moments, he would have been as much alone 
with them, as apart. " I looked for some to take pity, and 
there was none." " I have trodden the winepress alone." 

It was near midnight, after a hard, exciting day ; and 
the disciples were grieved and stupefied by the fact that 

* Commenting upon these events, President Dwight has emphasized 
the point that Jesus desired Peter to be with him, even though he had but 
a moment before warned the apostle that he would deny him before morn- 
ing. " The denial would be but a temporary, even a momentary, lapse ; 
the great movement of life would go forward notwithstanding this, and 
beyond this. Jesus could keep near to himself, in the darkest hour, one 
who was to say, with an oath, <I know not the man.' The line which 
separated Peter from Judas, — how clearly Jesus saw it." — Article in 
Sunday School Times by Timothy Dwight, LL.D., Yale University. 

[book vii.] 320 



"I AM HE. 

their Lord was soon to be separated from them, they hardly 
knew how. They were sleeping for sorrow, says St. Luke. 
They could not have been aware of the pending arrest of 
Jesus ; although John knew that Judas would betray him, 
and Jesus had told them at the brook crossing, "All ye 
shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, 
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."* 
The apostles were full blooded men, muscular, hearty, 
with the vigor of scores of years in them, and their eyes 
were heavy ; they could sleep on the Mount of the Trans- 
figuration of Jesus, or on the greensward of that holy 
ground set apart for his exquisite grief. The Master has 
made their apology, " The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh 
is weak." "Ye are they," Jesus had said, "which have 
continued with me in my temptation." And he had more 
patience with their human infirmity, than has been mani- 
fested by the sleepless disciples of subsequent ages.f 

THE rude band of the chief priests and captains of the 
temple, the elders, and the multitude with them, and 
the clattering Roman soldiery, now broke into the holy of 
holies, the praying place of Jesus in the garden. The full 
moon did not answer and they bore torches to search for 

* It is noteworthy, that Jesus gave this warning in no reproachful 
spirit ; but as an occasion for making an appointment for a future meeting 
with his disciples in Galilee. 

fMatt. xxvi:45, 46; Mark xiv:41. "Sleep on now:" "Rise, 
let us be going." There was a little interval of time between these two 
expressions ; the latter referring to the approach of Judas. — Edersheim. 

321 21 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

him, as if Jesus were likely to run away and hide himself. 
Then, too, they were well armed.* And Judas was armed 
with a kiss. We shudder, when we think that he may have 
kissed Jesus before that, — so affectionate and approachable 
was the Son of Man. He might have indicated the person 
of Jesus by some other token ; he had the heart to do it in 
this way. Nor did Jesus spurn the embrace of the son of 
perdition, f 



WHEN Jesus was sought for to be made a king," says 
St. Bernard, " he escaped ; but when he was brought 
to the cross, he freely yielded himself." " Whom seek ye ? " 
he asked; and as soon as he said unto them, " I am he," 
they went backward and fell to the ground. "He," says 
Dr. Withrow, "at whose words wild winds immediately 
stilled to a great calm, and stormy seas smoothed out as 
lakes of silver, had but to look on the armed company and 
the attending rabble, and they fell, as if an electric cloud 
had been discharged upon them all." There was probably 
something in the appearance of Jesus which smote the 
armed band with terror, even if there was no forth-putting 
of miraculous power. They knew his power, and feared it. 



* " So also might butchers do well to go armed, when they are pleased 
to be afraid of lambs by calling them lions." — Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 

f The blood money, says Farrar, bore an olive branch, the emblem 
of peace ; a censer, the emblem of prayer; and the legend, "Jerusalem, 
the holy." 

322 



"I AM HE." 

Olshausen has said that they were "held by the viewless 
bands of the Spirit." * 

He who might have replied by fire and whirlwind, an- 
swered in a still small voice : " I have told you that I am 
he. If therefore ye seek me. let these go their way." So 
he provided for the flight of his disciples. 

lt Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him 
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? " f 

Jesus had said, " Of these which thou gavest me, have I 
lost none." He therefore planned for their escape;! l es ^ 
the college of the Apostles be broken up. They had not 
earlier fled, although warned of it two days before, and 
again warned an hour before. They clung to him, till 
Jesus suggested their flight. 

Peter, however, set out to make good his word,§ "If I 
should die with thee, I will not deny thee." Had there 
been any virtue in swords, he would have made good his 
word. When, however, Jesus bade him resist not, and when 
his Master did not call on frw elve legion of angels, and when 
he put forth no self-defense but meekly yielded, then Peter 
knew that the armies of Rome would prove too much for 

* Dean Farrar has remarked in this connection : < ' The savage 
and brutal Gauls could not lift their swords to strike the majestic senators 
of Rome. ' I cannot slay Marius,' exclaimed the barbarian slave ; fling- 
ing down his sword, — and flying headlong from the prison into which he 
had been sent to murder the aged hero." 

f Mrs. Browning. 

X John xviii : 9 . 

§ John xviii : 10 ; compare Mark xiv : 29-31. 

323 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

him alone unaided by the power of his Lord : then fear so 
unmanned him that he was ready to quail at the approach 
of a servant girl ; and he quite forgot the voice out of the 
cloud, "This is my beloved Son." 

Within sound of the mockery of his enemies, and with 
their binding cords about him, Jesus was not agitated ; and 
he still made high claim to control the movements of the 
armies of heaven.* The calm reliance of Jesus upon celes- 
tial aid, if need be, instead of raising a mob when he might 
have done so, to attack his foes, shows that Jesus was no 
ill-balanced enthusiast. He voluntarily laid down his life, 
that he might take it again. 

There is in the Vatican a painting of this wild scene in 
the garden when the soldiers bore Christ away. A fierce 
Roman captain is represented as dragging Christ away by 
grasping at his robe. And a soldier has him by the arm, 
and a rope is about the Saviour's neck. Another soldier, 
with clinched fist raised, and who appears to be uttering a 
loud cry, is close behind our Lord, and spears and battle 
axes rise on every side like a thicket. In the background, 
two disciples are running away between the tall trees. In 
the foreground Peter, with drawn sword, is bending over 
the prostrate Malchus. And behind him is seen the figure 
of Judas fleeing, — with his hands clasped, as if he were 
about to wring them in great agony ; and with a sad, earnest 
face, as if now at last he were conscious of the great wrong 
he had wrought, and were now setting his face towards the 
door of despair. 

*Matt. xx vi: 53. 

324 



"I AM HE." 

Yet the grand figure in the picture is that of Christ him- 
self, whose face is full of pity for a sinning race ; having 
the look of one who has just risen from agonizing prayer 
for the perishing millions, — and now so full of pity for the 
whole human race as to be scarcely conscious of the acts of 
those who are bearing him away. 

And we know that in a moment he touched the wound 
of Malchus, and went forth to meet his death, led like a 
paschal lamb to the slaughter. 




325 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

A. Triumphant Mob, 



-^y©<^- 




NCE within clutch, the adversaries of Jesus made 
short work with him ; doing so much in the dark- 
ness that they had him nailed to the accursed 
tree by nine o'clock in the morning. There were 
twenty thousand resident priests in Jerusalem ; and among 
them all, there were enough who were ready to plait thorns 
for the Saviour's brow. 

The tribunal before which Jesus was tried, did not try 
him at all. It was only a form for announcing what they 
had long intended to do,— to murder him in some author- 
ized form. There was no charge substantiated, save that 
to which he confessed then and there, and of which, before 
that time, they had often heard him speak, — that he claimed 
to be the Messiah. 

Jesus was really condemned for free speech, which those 
who then sat in Moses' seat did not allow, except on their 
own side. Corrupt and wicked as they were, they would 
not have objected to his Messiahship, had he been at one 
with them. Jesus, as a teacher, became a martyr to in- 

' Book VII.] 326 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

tolerance.* It was feared lest his foes lose their grip on 
the perquisites of the Mosaic system. Bitter and malignant 
were these wicked husbandmen, who rose and slew him 
whom they should have reverenced, that they might claim 
his inheritance. 

They had been waiting an occasion when they could 
slay the Saviour in safety to themselves. If at any time 
they had stoned him for blasphemy, they would have 
offended the people and Pilate. Since the resurrection of 
Lazarus, they had taken counsel together ; and they had 
planned it all out. And now they were going to give the 
Paschal Lamb a " trial," before butchering him : it was not 
i question of guilt or innocence. 

The high priest's office was much sought for, affording 
peculiar privileges for trading in the temple, and for mak- 
ing gain through various oppressions connected with the 
political relation of the high priest to the Roman power ; 
when he was subservient, he virtually ruled Israel, and 
greatly enriched himself. 

Resolute and calm stood the Saviour of men before the 
high priest of his nation, with face downcast as might 
become one in the presence of him who represented the 
Mosaic ritual ; and over against him stood the violent and 
mitered priest, — disturbed, and eager for condemning his 
victim to the paschal sacrifice. At about four o'clock, upon 
this morning of the seventh of April, the Sanhedrin ap- 

* < ' Champion of a divine morality, he drew the world after him ; he 
had but to speak the word, and his enemies were no more. But he who 
came to destroy intolerance, refrained from imitating it." — Rousseau. 

327 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

peared. And he who was called the " Faithful Witness," 
was now accused by false witness, — but those testifying 
did not agree, and nothing came of it ; nor could the high 
priest have been greatly surprised at the " peace " of Jesus 
in answering nothing, — " as a sheep before her shearers is 
dumb, so he opened not his mouth." 

Then came the main question : <( I adjure thee by the 
living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
Son of the Blessed." In answer to this, and quite in con- 
trast with his silence upon false accusation, Jesus at once 
affirmed his Messiahship ; this was true, and he empha- 
sized it.* 

More than once, the Jews had taken up stones to stone 
Jesus for saying the same thing ; f but his death was re- 
served till the high priest might officially offer him up at 
the passover. Caiaphas now solemnly rent his clothes, 
saying, J " He hath spoken blasphemy. What need we 
of witnesses ? What think ye ? " They answered, and 
said, "He is guilty of death." So he was made sin, who 
knew no sin ; so far at least as to be treated like a sinner, 
— a blasphemer. 

The truth is, however, that the crime of the high priest 
and the council of seventy is divested of all dignity, and 
defense ; even if they believed, contrary to the Scriptures, 
that the Messiah was to be human, § they stand convicted 
and condemned for having treated the Christ like a com- 

* Matt, xxvi : 03, 64. f John viii : 59 and x : 31 . £ Matt, xxvi : 65, 66. 
§Vide article Son of God in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. 

328 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

mon blasphemer, utterly ignoring the miraculous tokens — 
which they admitted * — of his divine mission, and cavil- 
ing at his claims, because his teaching undermined their 
own position. Even Pilate could discern their motives, 
knowing that the chief priests had delivered him for 
envy, f 

The consent of Pilate was needful in order to put Jesus 
to death ; and until the Roman governor could be found, 
the high priest and distinguished masters in Israel took the 
time for insulting Jesus. In the house of the high priest, 
he who had denounced hypocrites was now set upon as a 
hypocritical pretender to the Messiahship. He who had 
opened the eyes of so many of the blind, was now blind- 
folded ; and those cheeks, which had been wet by tears of 
sympathy for mourners, and tears for Jerusalem, were spit 
upon. He who had healed the withered hand, was now 
struck by hands which he would not wither in return. 
Such miraculous power abode in him, that healing went 
forth from the hem of his garment, and his " voice could 
command every element of destruction, and add thereto 
legions of invisible spirits ; and yet he had to bear the 
contumely of every worthless menial, who could sharpen 
his tongue or lift up his heel against him." J 

When reviled, he reviled not again. He manifested no 
impatience toward the scowling priests. He made no 
murmuring and uttered no complaint when they buffeted 

* John xi : 47. f Matt, xxvii : 18. 
% These quoted words are from Edward Irving. 

329 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

him. He met their taunts with holy resignation. He drank 
the bitter cup, enduring the contradiction of sinners against 
himself. " He was not," says Edersheim, "defenseless but 
undefending, not vanquished but uncontending, not help- 
less but majestic in voluntary self-submission for the high- 
est purpose of love." By the very conditions of his holy 
nature, he could resort to no human weakness even if backed 
up by divine power in avenging himself, but he committed 
himself to him that judgeth righteously.* 



THE chief priests now bound Jesus and delivered him to 
Pontius Pilate. The governor's quarters were in 
Herod's palace, whose magnificence is portrayed by Jewish 
historians. The broad avenues leading thither were 
thronged by the mob ; and the trees with cross-like arms 
overhung the Man of Sorrows, and the cool waters of arti- 
ficial streams gurgled mournfully at the world's great 
grief, as Jesus walked beside them between the Roman 
soldiers. 

It is grimly and grotesquely related f that the priests 
piously kept themselves out of Pilate's precincts, lest they 
be defiled by his heathen hall of justice. They, too, who had 
sought repeatedly to stone Jesus, now took great pains to 
inform J Pilate that it was unlawful for them to put any- 

*I. Peter ii : 23. What, however, human weakness would usually 
do, can be seen by consulting Dante's Inferno, where he speaks of the 
fate of Judas, and the eternal crucifixion of Caiaphas. 

f John : xviii : 28. % John xviii : 28. 

330 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

body to death ; and they wanted him to kill Jesus for them. 
At this stage of the proceedings, however, these persons, 
so scrupulous to observe strict law and equity, were careful 
not to tell Pilate what was the real charge against Jesus ; 
that they looked on him as a malefactor ought, they said, 
to satisfy the governor. 

They knew that Pilate would never kill Jesus upon the 
original charge of his claiming to be the Messiah. This 
throws light on the character of the Seventy who " tried " 
and condemned Jesus. With them it was, truly, not in the 
slightest degree a question of guilt or innocence ; it was a 
question of how to get Jesus killed. It was no "defile- 
ment " for them to lie ; they could swear falsely, and then 
go on with their passover undisturbed. They said that 
Jesus perverted the nation, forbidding to give tribute to 
Csesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. 

Pilate questioned Jesus therefore as to his kingship. He 
found him indeed a king, self -poised, with no quickening of 
heart beats in the presence of Roman power and Roman 
cruelty. Jesus claimed to be a king, but not of this world, 
having no servants to fight, — a king in the realm of truth,* 
winning conquests age after age in all lands. Here in the 
very presence of his executioner, Jesus "expected to lift 
his crumbling arm out of the grave, and sway with it the 
living world." f 



* " What is truth, asked Pilate ; and he stayed not for an answer." — 
Bacon's Essays. 

f Samuel Harris, LL.D. 

331 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

As to a carnal kingdom, the attack of the Jews upon 
Jesus was grounded upon this : that Jesus was not a politi- 
cal king in the sense that they supposed the Messiah would 
be ; and yet, at their instigation, Pilate cut him off on the 
pretext that he aspired to be a political king.* 

After Pilate's first examination of Jesus, however, in 
his "trial," the vacillating Pilate pronounced Jesus inno- 
cent. The Jews then rallied with new charges, accusing 
Jesus of many things. Yet Jesus was silent in the judg- 
ment hall, and he answered nothing to their false witness. 
And when the astonished Pilate asked, " Answerest thou 
nothing ? " Jesus still answered nothing ; he would not 
put himself on a level with liars, to affirm or deny, f 

When, however, Pilate gave his verdict upon their 
" many things" of accusation, "I find no fault in this 
man," the chief priests were the more fierce, saying, "He 
stirreth up the people, from Galilee to this place." This 
Pilate caught at, and sent Jesus to Herod, who happened to 

* " They laid information against him before the Roman government 
as a dangerous character ; their real complaint against him was precisely 
this, that he was not dangerous. Pilate executed him on the ground that 
his Kingdom was of this world ; the Jews procured his execution pre- 
cisely because it was not." — Ecce Homo. 

f The Roman governor evidently thought Jesus would wrangle and 
retort, as was common in the Orient. But it did not occur to the Son of 
God that this would comport with his soriship ; one of the tokens of which 
was a dignified and Divine silence. " My Father honoreth me, "he had 
said ; and he little heeded what the chief priests and elders were saying. 
Making no reply to their false accusations, he was content with hearing 
celestial voices that bestowed upon his name honor, and glory, and bless- 
ing. 

332 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

be in town, and who had jurisdiction over matters Galilean. 
So Pilate and Herod, who had been at enmity, now shook 
hands over the condemnation of Christ. Herod on his 
part was glad to see Jesus, hoping he would exhibit before 
him some miracle, and "he questioned with him in many 
words," but not one word did he get in reply from one who 
held him beneath contempt. Then the chief priests and 

scribes stood and vehemently accused Jesus. Herod, how- 

* 

ever, after hearing them, made up his mind that Jesus as a 
pretender to a kingship was not a seriously dangerous char- 
acter. Herod and his valiants spent their time, therefore, 
mocking at Jesus as an innocent fanatic ; and they arrayed 
him in a gorgeous robe, to suit his kingly claims, and sent 
him back to Pilate, — who thereupon said that he would re- 
lease Jesus, since both he and Herod found in him nothing 
worthy of death. 

Even if the governor played fast and loose with the 
principal priests, he was, however, as a politician, bound to 
content the masses of the people whatever might happen 
to Jesus. According to custom, the offer was now made 
to the multitude to release Jesus, or Barabbas who was in 
prison for sedition and murder. The chief priests and 
elders persuaded the mob to ask Barabbas and destroy 
Jesus. So was the Messiah despised and rejected of men. 
Now Pilate, willing to release Jesus, spoke again, "What 
shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ ?" Nor 
did it occur to him to ask, " What will this man called Christ 
do with me ? " 

Then arose that dread cry, ' ' Crucify him, " ' ' Crucify him. " 

333 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Pilate had reason to fear a Jewish mob. When he had 
once taken the Roman standards, surmounted with the 
idolatrous image of the emperor, within the sacred pre- 
cincts of the temple, the mob had shut up the governor five 
days in his palace, till he removed them. 

Zealots for the law, the hard-hearted, the sanctimonious 
Pharisees, and the fickle mob gathered by the festal days 
from every village from Dan to Beersheba — including the 
rude Nazarenes, who had always said that Jesus was an im- 
poster, — were now all in full cry, " Crucify him," 
" Crucify him." 

Yet Pilate argued with their leaders : " Why ? What 
evil hath he done ? " So, for the third time, he pronounced 
Jesus innocent. 

And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that 
he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the 
chief priests prevailed. 

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that 
rather a tumult was made, he "took water, and washed 
his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the 
blood of this just person : see ye to it." 

Vain it was that he washed his hands : he did not wash 
them in innocency.* 

* Impressive are the words of an English primate, the Archbishop 
of York : — 

" Of one who represented for eleven years the horrible might of Rome 
to the prostrate Jewish people, it may be said that almost nothing is now 
known except that he put to death One whom the Jews spoke of as the 
Carpenter's Son. In ten thousand congregations every Sunday this crime 
is commemorated. There is something strange and awful in this unsought 

334 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

Loudly cried the Jewish people in answer to their Roman 
ruler, " His blood be on us, and on our children " : a curse 
so horrible in its fulfillment, that its prescience had already 
moved their rejected Messiah to tears. 

Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him ; and his sol- 
diers stripped him, and put on a scarlet robe, and they 
plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed 
in his right hand, and they bowed the knee, and mocked 
him as a sham king ; and they spit upon him, and took the 
reed and smote him on the head. 

He who had plied the scourge in cleansing his Father's 
house, now yielded his back to the smiters.* Yet no word 
of complaint arose from the patient sufferer. He had al- 
ready foretold these very indignities ; f and since they 
were all subservient to the death before him, he " hid not 
his face from shame and spitting." 

So was Jesus made a curse for us, — treated as an accursed 
one. The crown of thorns, the bleeding brow, be ours ; if 

pre-eminence in infamy. There is something awful in the fact that a 
crime which he sought to disavow was really perpetrated through him ; 
that it proved to be the greatest wickedness which the world has ever 
seen, although Pilate knew it not ; and that this unhappy man, after he 
had ended his earthly troubles by the death of a suicide, should never be 
allowed to sink into the dark oblivion that he courted for himself when he 
ended his spoilt and frustrated life. Down all the ages echo the words of 
condemnation — < Crucified under Pontius Pilate, crucified under Pontius 
Pilate.' " 

*The gore of criminals lately scourged, still marked the pillar to 
which our Lord was fastened by an iron ring ; blood, too, upon the 
leather thongs, with their cubes or hooks of bone. 

fLukexviii: 31-33. 

335 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

by being- mocked at, we may honor his name, or serve the 
souls for which he suffered shame. 

Pilate could but be moved by the spectacle of our 
Saviour's meekness and majesty under torture and insult ; 
and he again protested the innocence of Jesus, as he brought 
him forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple 
robe: "Behold the man." And there stood Jesus amid 
the spears of the soldiers, amid the clamoring priests, amid 
a human surging sea ; and again his ears were pierced with 
the maddened cry, " Crucify him," " Crucify him." 

Pilate once more protested his innocence : "I find no 
fault in him." Then the chief priests, seeing that their 
charge of political offense had utterly fallen through, 
finally told Pilate the truth, " We have a law, and by our 
law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of 
God." 

Upon this recurrence to the old charge kept secret till 
now, Pilate examined Jesus anew ; * this charge being new 
to him. It seemed credible to Pilate that his prisoner had 
rule in a spiritual kingdom, and he was afraid to go for- 
ward, f He asked Jesus whence he came : but there was 
no answer. " Speakest thou not to me ? I have power 
to crucify thee, or to release thee." " Thou couldest have 
no power against me, except it were given thee from above : 
therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater 
sin." Caiaphas was worse than Pilate. 

*John xix: 8-11. 

f His wife had already warned him to have nothing to do with that 
just man. Matt, xxvii : 19. 

33G 



THE CROWN OF THORNS. 

Thenceforth, it is said, Pilate sought to release him.* 
But Caiaphas was equal to the emergency. He knew 
Pilate better than Pilate did ; he knew that he was a politi- 
cian : — "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's 
friend, f 

This was touching the governor at a tender point. If 
Jesus with his amazing influence were to be spared, the 
Jews would accuse their governor at Rome. It was a 
threat, and it succeeded. The order for crucifixion was 
signed.^ 

. The result of this trial for Jesus was to establish his 
innocence. As the Paschal Lamb, he was without spot or 
blemish ;§ and as such he was offered as a sacrifice by the 
high priest at the passover. 



*" Contemporary historians tell us that Pilate was an austere and 
cruel man, a man of firm resolves, and one who shrank not from the de- 
struction of human life : but we see here, that for once the cruel man be- 
came merciful; for once, the man of resolve became timid." — F. W. 
Robertson. 

f Those who made boast to Jesus that they were never in bondage to 
any man, now claimed no king but Csesar. 

X The " trial " of Jesus was really the trial of Caiaphas and of Pilate, 
by which the world has condemned them. It cannot be said that it was 
a matter of indifference to Pilate whether Jesus perished ; yet it was not 
in him to risk becoming a political martyr to save the innocent. And the 
bigotry of the Jews and the malignity of the chief priests did not lead 
him to think the religion of Judea better than the heathenism of Rome, 
so that he decided according to a Roman standard : Caiaphas knew better, 
save as he was blinded by the god of this world. (II. Cor. iv : 4.) 

§ Exodus xii : 5 ; and repeated with ceaseless iteration in the Hebrew 
books. 

337 22 




CHAPTER SIX. 

The Darkness at Noonday. 

ae?^- B B B ^ka; ■ 

^dj OLGOTHA was a dome-like ledge, or slightly ris- 
ing rocky ground with summit rounded like a 
skull, nigh to Jerusalem, and a little north of the 
city, where criminals were commonly executed, — and there 
our Saviour suffered like a condemned thief. Sad indeed 
was that funeral procession, when Jesus was led forth : a 
soldier first of all, bearing a legend publishing the crime of 
Jesus, his earthly kingship they said it was ; then came 
four soldiers and their centurion, and they bore the wicked 
hammer and the cruel nails ; and Jesus walked between 
them, staggering under the weight of that rugged beam, 
which as the true cross was now distinguished from all 
other trees of earth, — he walked silently with blood stained 
garments marked by thorns and scourge ; then came the 
two robbers, each with his own cross, and each with soldier 
guard ; then walked the triumphant chief priests, the scribes 
and Pharisees, learned rabbis and the elders of Israel, and 
that malignant mob, whose outcries for crucifixion had 
prevailed, and Barabbas perchance so early released now 
joined the throng, and perhaps that recreant whom Jesus 
had healed that he might enter into league with the enemies 

[Book VII.] 338 



CALVARY. 

of our Lord ; then, struggling along after the motley multi- 
tude had gone by, came a wailing and lamenting company,* 
and St. John and Mary the mother of Jesus among them. 
Then there came — who shall say that they did not come — 
an innumerable company of angels — not now needed to 
defend the Christ ; those angels who sang at his birth, his 
guardian spirits who had sustained Jesus when distressed 
in the wilderness or moaning and sobbing in the garden, 
those principalities and powers who were to bear their part 
in the tragedy of the crucifixion, rending the rocks and 
hanging the skies in black, those faithful ones who were to 
stand beside the Roman soldiers at the tomb of Jesus, — 
they were all here, with folded wings and tearful eyes, with 
martial step and hands upon their sword hilts, ready to 
rescue the patient sufferer if he should choose not to lay 
down his life for a guilty world. 

All the way was a Via Dolorosa, " The Way of Sorrows, 
traversed by Jesus in pain and agony, watered with his 
tears, bathed in the blood which flowed from his sacred 
veins." f Was there no devout and sympathizing child to 
wipe the bloody sweat from the Saviour's face ? Was there 
no curse for gross insults offered to the Lord of glory ? 

He who upheld the worlds by the word of his power, 
now fainted under the weight of his cross. The torturing 
wood, the instrument of cruelty from Asia, was now laid by 

*Luke xxiii : 27-31. "Daughters of Jerusalem," said our Lord, 
" Ave ep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." A 
prophetic saying, fulfilled in the lifetime of many of them. 

f Padre Agostino da Montefeltro. 

339 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

a European mandate, upon strong shoulders from Africa, — 
the continents so bearing a part in the Saviour's crucifixion ; 
the executives and the soldiers of Rome, the accusers of 
Judea, and the merciful Cyrenian, representing the known 
world. " When Simon came out of the country to Jerusa- 
lem, one April morning, he was an obscure and unknown 
man : but when the cross of Jesus was laid upon his shoul- 
der, his patent of nobility was secure ; and wide as the 
world, and lasting as the ages, is the fame of the man who 
bore the Saviour's cross."* Edersheim interprets Mark 
xv : 22, as indicating that Jesus, who had not tasted food or 
drink since the paschal supper, now needed to be supported 
during the remainder of the way. 

THEY reached the place, says Mark, at nine o'clock ; 
perhaps not twelve hours after our Lord had broken 
the bread, and tasted the cup, with his disciples : so great 
was the haste of the friends of Judas. The Roman cour- 
tesy of a draught of drugged wine, to deaden sensibility, 
Jesus rejected. And now was fulfilled the Messianic words 
that Jesus had pondered in the carpenter's shop, " They 
pierced my hands and my feet." 

It had been written, that unto Christ every knee should 
bow, and every tongue should swear. Yet in the place of 
allegiance, men stood up, and nailed him high ; and moved 

*Rev. II. L. Hastings. 

The sons of Simon are named by St. Mark, — as if they were known as 
Christians. 

340 



CALVARY. 

their tongues to curse the anointed of God. How strange 
the fulfillment of prophecy : of Christ it had been written, 
" Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, thy right 
hand shall teach thee terrible things " ; yet the right hand 
of Christ was pierced with nails. The hand that wielded 
the scepter of the universe was stretched out empty. The 
hands that had wrested the victims of death from his power 
were now made fast by the messengers of death. 

Those feet that were to bruise the head of the serpent, 
and press the neck of man's immortal enemy, were torn by 
the rough iron spikes. 

1 < Those blessed feet were nailed 
For our advantage on the bitter cross." 

Then was fulfilled the prophecy concerning the Messiah, 
that he should bear the sin of many, and make interces- 
sion for the transgressors: "Father, forgive them; for 
they know not what they do."* The hammering soldiers 
knew nothing of the character and dignity of our Lord ; 
who was praying for them, — as the friend of the un- 
friendly. 

" I believe that prayer was answered," says D wight L. 
Moody. " We find that right there in front of the cross, a 
Roman centurion was converted. It was probably in 
answer to the Saviour's prayer. The conversion of the 
thief, I believe, was in answer to that prayer of our' blessed 
Lord. Saul of Tarsus may have heard it, and the words 

* ' i Christ forgave his murderers before his blood was cold on their 
hands." — President E. D. Griffin, LL.D. 

341 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

may have followed him as he traveled to Damascus ; so 
that when the Lord spoke to him on the way, he may have 
recognized the voice. One thing we do know ; that on the 
day of Pentecost some of the enemies of the Lord were con- 
verted. Surely that was in answer to the prayer, " Father, 
forgive them." * 

The patient suffering of our Lord, and his prayer for his 
murderers, melted the centurion's heart ; and the strange 
portents that accompanied the death of Jesus satisfied him 
that he had crucified a righteous man, — nay, "the Son of 
God" ; an acknowledgment of divinity that came too late. 
The most wonderful part, however, of the Saviour's patient 
thoughtfulness and petition, relates to his true murderers, 
the Jews, who stood behind Pilate: "Father, forgive 
them ; for they know not what they do." f The prayer of 
Jesus was not for God's wrath, but for God's pity upon his 
f oes. I So Jesus, says Alford, " inaugurates his interces- 

* " B uny an in his Jerusalem Sinner Saved," says Mr. Moody, " sup- 
poses Christ, after his resurrection, sending Peter to all sorts of men. 
Go, Peter, and tell that man who spat in my face that I forgive him. Go 
and tell that man who placed the crown of thorns npon my head, that if 
he repent I will forgive him and grant him a crown of glory with no 
thorn in it. Tell that man who struck me with the reed and sent the 
thorns into my brow, that I will forgive him and give him a scepter in 
my kingdom. Tell that man who smote me with his hand I forgive him ; 
the man who took the spear and pierced my side, that my blood cleanseth 
from all sin." 

f So Peter (Acts iii : 17) said, " I wot that through ignorance ye did 
it, as did also your rulers." And St. Paul (I. Cor. ii: 8) affirms that 
" none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they 
would not have crucified the Lord of glory." 

J S. Baring Gould contrasts this passage with Psalm cxviii : 11, 12. 

342 



CALVARY. 

sorial office,— his teaching ended, his high priesthood 
begun." * 

Not yet were the eyes of cruelty moistened,not yet were 
priestly consciences stirred by remorse. But the prayer 
was answered on the day of pentecost next following. St. 
Stephen, too, heard the prayer of Jesus, and in the hour of 
his own martyrdom he kneeled, and cried with a loud voice, 
" Lord, lay not this sin to their charge " : and when he had 
said this, he fell asleep. 



WHAT kind of a man Pilate was, appeared in the false 
inscription he put up, — knowing that Jesus 'Claimed 
only a spiritual kingdom ; yet having wronged his con- 
science by crucifying the innocent, he now advertised to the 
world that Jesus was after all a political offender. " Pilate 
gave Christ the title of king, and crucified him as a thief." f 
He, too, placed the malefactors on either side of the inno- 
cent, — the holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners ; 
so numbering him with the transgressors. 

Now Jesus saw that he was already numbered with the 
dead, since his only earthly store, his travel-worn clothing 
tattered and stained by his contact with the mob, was now 
divided out under his eyes. And when he saw them part- 

*See Dr. McLaren's Article, page 588. 

In respect to this divine spirit of onr Lord, how true are the thought- 
ful words of Rousseau : " If the life and death of Socrates are those of 
a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God." 

f Antonio de Guevara. 

343 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ing his garments among them, and casting lots upon his 
vesture, he could but call to memory that ancient Hebrew 
hymn, which must have seemed to him, in his early man- 
hood when he began to discern that the Messiah would be a 
Man of Sorrows, the song of his own crucifixion.* 

And then Jesus saw the careless soldiers, faithful in 
their guard, sit down at the foot of the cross to watch his 
life away. " They looked at the sufferings of Christ, and 
saw nothing. These rude legionaries gazed for hours on 
what has touched the world ever since, and saw nothing 
but a dying Jew. They thought about the worth of the 
clothes, or about how long they would have to stop there, 
and in the presence of the most stupendous fact in the 
world's history were all unmoved ; and tramped back at 
night to their barracks utterly ignorant of what they had 
been doing. We too may gaze on the cross, and see noth- 
ing." f 

There were not, however, wanting certain friendly eyes J 
to watch their thorn-crowned Saviour ; going forth unto 
him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 

Angelic spirits, too, were waiting, bowing their sad faces, 



* The garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, was, 
to Jesus, some friendly token. Did it come from the grateful home of 
Jairus? Was it made by one who found healing in the hem of his 
garment? Was it the gift of Mary of Magdala? A soldier won it at dice. 
Did he wear it in scenes of shame and violence? Was it soon rolled in 
blood? Was he softened, and saved by it, and made meet for heaven? 

f Alexander McLaren, D.D., in the Sunday School Times. 

% Luke xxiii : 49 ; Heb. xiii : 13. 

344 



CALVARY. 

as Jesus extended his arms upon the cross to bless the 
world from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. 

1 ' No rod, no scepter is 
Holden in His fingers pale : 
They close instead upon the nail, ' 

Concealing the sharp dole — 
Never stirring to put by 

The fair hair peaked with blood, 
Drooping forward from the rood 

Helplessly — heavily — 
On the cheek that waxeth colder, 
Whiter ever, — and the shoulder 
Where the government was laid."* 

" Bound upon the accursed tree, 
Faint and bleeding, who is He ? 
By the eyes so pale and dim, 
Streaming blood and withering limb ; 
By the flesh with scourges torn ; 
By the crown of twisted thorn ; 
By the baffled, burning thirst ; 
By the drooping, death-dewed brow — 
Son of Man, 'tis Thou, 'tis Thou." f 

\ 

UNFRIENDLY faces, too, had gathered to watch Jesus, 
when his life was slowly ebbing away, — the weight 
of the body ever tugging at the pierced tendons of the 
hands, and pressing upon the bruised bones and pierced 
muscles of the feet. It would appear that wicked hands 
were rubbed in glee, as if demons had become priests of 

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning, — " The Seraphim." 
f Quoted by Tholuck in Light from the Cross. 

345 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Israel, upon the "preparation day" for the passover Sab- 
bath. Ghastly was the merry making of those who wagged 
their heads, in derision of exquisite anguish. We can but 
shudder at the elaborated terms of derision employed by 
the chief priests ; words caught at by the coarse and savage 
soldiery. 

Coming and going on the high road not far away, there 
was a constant succession of passers-by, from the vast con- 
course present at the passover, to heap affronts upon the 
silent sufferer. He who of late was moved by compassion 
at seeing the multitude as sheep without a shepherd, now 
half forgot himself in grieving over the surging throngs 
about the cross ; and the guilt of the jeering priests dis- 
tressed him more than their sarcasms. 

They admitted that Jesus had saved others, and knew 
not that it was to save others that he was now lifted up. 
They taunted him with inability to save himself and come 
down from the cross. He could have done it : it was his 
divine love, and not the nails, that fastened him to the 
shameful wood. " In that breast wrung by mortal agony," 
says Tholuck, " there still dwells the consciousness that he 
is a king, who voluntarily submits himself to all the out- 
rage and suffering his rebellious subjects put upon him." 
Do you exalt the greatness of man ? Behold his guilt. 
Josephus says, " I believe that if the Romans had not come 
upon this wicked race when they did, an earthquake would 
have swallowed them up, or a flood have drowned them, or 
the lightnings of Sodom struck them. For this generation 
was more ungodly than all that had suffered such punish- 

•3-46 



CALVARY. 

ments." " Had I been there," cried Clovis, " I would 
have avenged Christ's wrongs." * 

It is written : " Cursed is every one that hangeth upon 
the tree." The cross was a public shame, attracting the 
eyes of the millions as could not have been done had Jesus 
been stoned by a mob. It was like dying, in these days, 
upon the gallows, f It subjected one to the scorn of the 
blind and brutal populace, Yet Jesus endured the cross, 
despising the shame. 

The sufferings of crucifixion were not intense enough to 
cause unconsciousness ; but the long continuance of the 
torment made it unendurable, or it was as horrible in 
every way as could be endured. It is possible that the 
Crucified One, at first, before dizziness made it impossible 
to think connectedly, may have attempted, by force of 
will, to divert his thoughts from centering on himself, by 
mechanically running over the Psalms he had learned in 

* It was so said, when St. Remy first rehearsed the story of the Pas- 
sion at the French Court. 

The black and silent cross of Calvary was, however, avenged : it 
being probable that some of those who abused Christ in that dread hour, 
were afterwards crucified by the* Romans ; who, thirty years after, con- 
demned thirty-six hundred citizens of Jerusalem, — crucifying many of 
the most prominent people. And, a few years later, so many were exe- 
cuted that, day after day, four or five hundred new victims were seen upon 
the crosses near the city. There were not crosses enough for the victims, 
or places to stand the crosses, says the historian. 

f The gospel story of the crucifixion shows that its details are true ; 
the death was so shameful, that it would have been slightly spoken of, 
if it had been made up, — since the same writers claimed for Jesus the 
brightest honors of a divine life. It was Jesus who conferred renown 
upon that which had been a symbol of dishonor. 

347 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

youth. If so, the twenty-second must have been one, since 
it illustrates this tragedy at so many points that it is re- 
peatedly referred to in the story : — 

"I am a reproach of men, and despised of the people. 
All they that see me laugh me to scorn ; they shoot out the 
lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that 
he would deliver him, — let him deliver him. * The assembly 
of the wicked have inclosed me. Be not far from me, for 
trouble is near ; for there is none to help. Be not thou far 
from me, O Lord : O my strength, haste thee to help me." 

For sympathy, as for anyone in the jeering crowd, Jesus 
was almost alone, f 

" He looked for some to pity. There is none. 
All pity is within Him, and not for Him ; 
His earth is iron under Him, and o'er Him 
His skies are brass : 
His seraphs cry < Alas ' 
With hallelujah voices that cannot weep ; 
. And man, for whom the dreadful work is done — 

Is crying with scornful voice 
< If verily this be the Eternal's Son.' " J 



* Compare Luke xxiii : 35, 37. 

f ' ' Many reverenced his miracles ; few followed the ignominy of his 
cross." — Thomas a Kempis. 

" Christ's circle narrowed down : first, the multitudes left him ; then, 
many so-called disciples; then, the twelve." — Moody's Notes from My 
Bible. 

" 1 have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was 
none with me." — Isa. lxiii : 3. 

% From The Scraplnm, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

348 



CALVARY. 

THE chief priests and the impenitent thief were in full 
sympathy in their abuse of Jesus : it was the penitent 
criminal whose conduct was in contrast with Caiaphas. 
Faintly listening to the mocking crowd below, Jesus forgot, 
for a moment, the horror of his situation, in hearing the 
prayer, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy 
kingdom." 

The penitent was better instructed than Pilate, as to the 
nature of Christ's Kingdom, and he had faith in Jesus when 
all the world rejected him. He had perhaps long plied his 
trade among the crowds that followed Jesus ; hearing his 
words, noting his miracles, — and pilfering.* Some word 
or look of Christ may have been like an arrow of conviction 
in his soul ; and now he repented, and professed his faith. 

" On me, as thou art dying, 

Oh, turn thy pitying eye : 
To thee for mercy crying, 

Before thy cross I lie. 
Thine, thine the bitter passion, 

Thy pain is all for me ; 
Mine, mine the deep transgression, 

My sins are all on thee." 

*7T.ND now the night of the cross began to fall, — that 
l\ supernatural blackness of the sky which blotted out 
the noonday sun : and, ere it was dark, Jesus saw that 
his mother, and his own beloved John, had come near to the 
cross. He scanned her sorrowing face, as she recalled the 

* Josephus, in writing about the times a little later than Herod tha 
Great, has much to say about thieves and their crucifixion. 

349 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

words of St. Simeon to her in the temple when Jesus was a 
babe, " a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." And 
in that supreme moment Jesus remembered her tender 
watch and care in his childhood, and asked John in his own 
place to bestow watch and care upon the mother of Im- 
manuel. 

" By the cross, sad vigil keeping, 
Stood the mournful mother weeping, 

While on it the Saviour hung ; 
In that hour of deep distress, 
Pierced the sword of bitterness 

Through her heart with sorrow wrung. 

" Oh, how sad, how woe-begone, 
Was that ever-blessed one, 

Mother of the Son of God. 
Oh, what bitter tears she shed 
W^hilst, before her, Jesus bled 

'Neath the Father's penal rod." * 

And now the darkness was settling down, and Jesus 
knew that the end could not be many hours away. In the 
anticipation of a further indefinite period of physical an- 
guish, with every nerve in torture, Jesus could not sleep, — 
even although the earth had come to its nightfall at the 
sixth hour. 

Was it not written of old time : "I will clothe the 
heaven with blackness," "The sun shall be dark." "And 
from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land 
unto the ninth hour" ? It was that darkness which preceded 



* Stabat Mater. — Lord Lindsay's translation. 

350 



CALVARY. 

the coming earthquake.* Did not the enemies of Jesus 
cease to mock ? And did not the soldiers experience a sense 
of unwonted awe ? The paschal festivities in the city, 
feasting, song, and mirth, were shrouded in the gloom of 
lowering skies f ; when the angelic mantle of darkness was 
thrown over the earth like a burial pall, — as if to hide the 
shuddering limbs upon the cross. 

The cry, " I thirst," now broke out upon the still air. 
It was uttered by him who, in the last great day of the 
feast of tabernacles, had stood up, and cried, saying, "If 
any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." He who 
had dispensed the water of life at the well in Samaria, was 
now " supplicating his executioners for a draught to miti- 
gate his thirst." \ 

WITH the deepening shades, the silent Son of Man now 
fell off into a mental stupor and desire to sleep, but 
he was kept from it by sense of utter physical exhaustion, 
and distress of his wounds. Then, too, the drapery of the 
sky seemed to him to shut off his vision of God. Perhaps, 
however, it was not so. In the agonized dreams of pro- 
tracted hours of torture, the words of the holy hymns that 

*" Examine your own annals," says Tertullian's Apology, "and 
there you will find that in the days of Pilate, when Christ died, the sun 
disappeared in full day, and the mid-day light was interrupted." 

f This effect of the noonday nightfall upon Jerusalem has been 
pictured in one of Dore's great paintings. 

JThis is Tholuck's phrase. 

" The vinegar and the gall were thine," says Flavel, "that the 
honey and the sweet might be mine." 

351 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he had learned at his mother's knee constantly recurred ; 
and there came a time when he could not but cry out in the 
language of the Messianic psalm, " My God, my God, why 
hast THOU forsaken ME?"* It may not have been a 
dream of despair, a sense of desertion, the bitterness of 
woe ; yet the angels who heard it must for the moment 
have rendered thanksgiving to God in an undertone, in 
sympathy with that cry of desolation. 

■ He who made no answer to the high priest, no answer 
to Pilate, no answer to the sentence, no answer to those who 
mocked him at the cross, — after his long hours of silence 
before God, could but now expostulate with heaven. Never 
a complaint had fallen from the lips of Jesus at the treachery 
and cruelty of man, yet now in the thickening obscuration 
of nature, now in the ordinary course of progressing death 
by crucifixion, now when dizziness dimmed the clearness of 
his mental operations, he could but have a sinking sense 
that God's face was lost from sight in the murky skies of 
Golgotha. 

If we may not say, in this climax of the Saviour's suffer- 
ing,— 

" That on his sinless soul, 

Our sins in all their guilt were laid, 
That he might make us whole," 

yet we must say that all the waves of God had gone over 
him ; and that he, who had called to himself the heavy 

* Psalms xx : 1,2. Compare Matt, xxvii : 46. Dr. Jacob Mayer 
says that the phraseology is that of the Targum Jonathan, an exact be- 
ginning of that psalm so applicable to Jesus in the hour of his passion. 

352 



CALVARY. 

laden, was now broken down by sorrow. God had said, 
"This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." Did God himself 
refuse to hear him in the last cry of his mortal agony ? 
Did God forsake him, when darkness clothed the sun ? 

WHEN Jesus " poured out his soul unto death," he was 
made "an offering for sin," and "the chastisement 
of our peace was upon him"; "he humbled himself, and 
became obedient unto death;" he "died for our sins 
according to the Scriptures."* We need not weigh all 
these words, or try to find their exact import in connection 
with the sufferings of the Paschal Lamb. Another voice 
was heard from out the dusky cloud that had settled on 
Calvary : "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." 

And now, from out the deep obscurity, again the dying 
Saviour's voice was heard : "It is finished." And he 
bowed his head, and dismissed his spirit. So Christ our 
passover was sacrificed for us ; the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world, f 

Jesus died, it is said, of a broken heart ; J caused by 
the agony of the garden and the cross. It was our sins 

* Cited in a paragraph from an article upon the Passion of Christ in 
the Independent, by S. T. Spear, D.D. 

f John xix : 30. I. Cor. v : 7. Rev. xiii : 8. 

That Jesus died so soon indicates great bodily sufferings ; and a body 
weakened before he came to that hour ; and an impairment of his early 
vigor, through his ministry. 

The disciples made much of the fact that when Jesus was sacrificed 
as the Paschal Lamb "not a bone was broken." John xix: 36. Ex. 
xii: 46. Num. ix : 12. Ps. xxxiv : 20. 

X Vide Lyman Abbott's Life of Christ, and recent authorities. 

353 23 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

that slew him, not that spear by which the blood of the 

true Vine was poured out for us. 

" A thief upon My right hand and My left ; 
Six hours alone, athirst, in misery : 
At length in death one smote My heart, and cleft 
A hiding place for thee." * 

NATURE mourned when Jesus died. The sea had been 
glad to obey him ; the sun had been glad to pour light 
into the eyes he opened : the graves had been glad to 
give up their dead. Nature had been glad even to curse a 
barren fig-tree which offered him no fruit. When Jesus 
died, Nature sought to hide the shame. In the darkness, 
the body of Jesus hung upon the cross : his white dead face 
was seen through the gloom ; men only dimly saw his 
wounded side, and nailed hands and feet. 

This preternatural darkness was the precursor of that 
quaking of the earth, which rent the veil of the temple in 
twain, as if the Lord of the temple would rend the garments 
of his house ; and the rocks were rent, and the dead turned 
out of their graves. 

Are human hearts unmoved, and harder than the rocks ? 

< ' The rocks were rent : their swift reply 
To Thy wild words that rent the sky, 
« Eli, Eli, Sabachthani, ' 

That rent the rocks." 

1 < The rocks were rent : yet can I bear 
To look on Christ without a tear, 
And calmly see the nails and spear, — 
Though rocks were rent? " 

* Christina G. Rossetti. 

354 



CALVARY. 

" *7T,LL the people that came together to that sight, be- 
[\ holding the things which were done, smote their 
breasts, and returned." Who can tell the disap- 
pointment, the despair, of his followers, now that Jesus, by 
his voluntary self-sacrifice, had frustrated the hopes they had 
centered in him ? All his acquaintance, and the women 
that followed him from Galilee, had stood afar off, beholding 
these things ; and now they were heartbroken. 

The preparations for the burial of Jesus had to be com- 
pleted before five o'clock, since the Sabbath would begin 

at six. 

Sleep for trie Weary. 

O heart of pity, cease to beat ; 

To-day repose, O weary feet. 

Thy lips are mute, — Thy words of peace ; 

Thy folded hands, their blessing cease. 

O Thou, who didst o'er sinners weep, — 
Thine eyes are closed in blissful sleep ; 
O Thou whose ears were anguish-torn, — 
In silence deep, Thy corse is borne. 

The Saviour rests from work to-day ; 
In darkness dense, His form we lay. 
The sun has set ; now falls the night, 
And earth is shrouded from the Light. 

Thy gates, O God, fling open wide, — 
And haste, ye angels, to His side : 
He is not dead, — He rests in sleep ; 
In vigil watch, — His grave to keep. 

O Light, come forth, to break the gloom : 

Thy grave bereft, — a vacant room. 

O Life, in triumph, live again ; 

Thou Hope of earth, Thou Life of men. 

355 



BOOK EIGHT. 



•-*W~#-fc$*«- 



Our Risen Redeemer 

■ ^^SUP*^ ■ 

Chapter 1. Page 357. 

The Resurrection Morning. 

Chapter 2. Page 364. 

Where was His Abode? 

Chapter 3. Page 374. 

Opening the Heavenly Gates. 

Chapter 4. Page 380. 

Confident Witnesses. 

Chapter 5. Page 394. 

The Paschal Lamb. 




CHAPTER ONE. 

The Resurrection Morning. 

MIGHTIER Power than Rome guarded the body 
of Jesus ; and thirty-six hours after the earth- 
quake shock on Friday afternoon, there was 
another shock that rolled away the stone 
from the sepulcher. For the angel of the Lord descended, 
his countenance like lightning, and his raiment white as 
snow ; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and be- 
came as dead men. 

" 'Twas night, still night : 
A solemn silence hung upon the scene ; 
The keen, bright stars shone with unclouded light, 
Calm and serene. 

1 ' Hushed was the tomb : 
The heavy stone before its entrance lay ; 
No light broke in upon its silent gloom ; 
No starry ray. 

1 • The moonlight beamed ; 
It hung above the garden soft and clear ; 
Around the guard its radiance gleamed 
From helm and spear. 
[Book VIII.] 357 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" The tomb was sealed ; 
The watch patrolled before its entrance lone ; 
The bright night every step revealed ; 
None near the stone. 

1 < An angel there 
Descended from the calm and tranquil sky : 
The glory of his presence filled the air, 
All radiantly. 

* ' He rolled away 
From the still sepulcher the massive stone, 
And watching silent till the risen day 
He sat thereon. 

'< < At break of day 
The Saviour burst that cavern's stillness deep, 
Rising in conquest from death's shattered sway 
As from a sleep. 

" He rose as God, 
Rose as a mighty victor strong to save, 
Breaking death's silent chain and unseen rod 
There in the grave. 

" He rose on high, 
While angels hovered round on soaring wing, 
Wresting from the dark grave its victory, 
From death its sting." * 

" I lay down my life," said Jesus, " that I might take it 
again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of 
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again." " Whom God raised up, having loosed the 



* Attributed to Cardinal Newman. I have not been able to verify 

it. 

358 



THE MORNING OF THE RESURRECTION. 

pains of death," is the testimony of the apostle Peter ; "be- 
cause it was not possible that he should be hoiden of it." 

It was but a sleep. He awaked, for the Lord sustained 
him.* In the radiant peace of the morning, it was said, 
" Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, earth : and break forth 
into singing, O mountains ; for the Lord hath comforted 
his people." 

" As the rising of the sun irradiates the landscape, pour- 
ing the fresh matin splendor into each valley, wreathing 
the mountain cliffs with smiles, turning the snowy crest to 
chrysolite, while renewing the grace of every flower, and 
charging the dewdrops with diamond lusters, so this su- 
preme outburst of the Divine fullness of energy and sover- 
eignty resident in the Lord interprets all his preceding 
miracles, emphasizes all his recorded teachings, gives 
superlative import and glory to his humility, and makes us 
recognize the immensity of the sacrifice which to him was 
involved in the long endurance of our mortal limitations." f 

*TT.KD now the precious spicery, brought by the hands of 

l\ love at day dawn, was reserved for the laying away 

of domestic dear ones ; but henceforth, to the friends 

of Jesus, death had lost its bitterness. Their perplexity as 

* The orderly arrangement of the linen clothes and the disposition of 
the napkin indicated to the beloved disciple no hasty removal of the 
body; but rather the ordinary folding of garments used at night, 
when there dawned upon the sleeper the jubilant hour of the resurrection.- 
— John xx : 5-8. 

f R. S. Storrs, D.D., LL.D. 

359 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

to rolling away the great stone and seeking the living 
among the dead, was solved by other friends of Jesus from 
other realms where they had not thought to crucify their 
King. Yet priceless was that human love which went so 
early to the garden of burial. 

' ' The friend of Christ from Magdala, 
She hears the birds amid the palms, — 
The early camels' bells afar : 

She clasps the spices in her arms, 
Her resinons treasures, gifts, and balms, — 
With sighs, and broken chords of psalms." 

They had taken away her Lord, and she knew not 
where they had laid him : and through her tears, in the 
early lights and shades, she believed that Jesus was the 
gardener, — nor did he wear the garments she had seen. 
She knew his voice. 

The other women had held him by the feet, and wor- 
shiped him. This Jesus disallowed in Mary* : he was so 
soon to ascend to the Father, that she should make haste 
with a message to those whose eyes were still red with 
weeping ; and he would quickly gather the five hundred in 
Galilee. 

For her the Easter lilies were blooming ; and all her 
tears were wiped away. 

*" The day for personal physical presence, for merely human affec- 
tion, for the grasp of human tenderness, was over. Henceforth he was 
to be with his people more nearly, more intimately, — in spirit." — 
Farrar. 

" I am not risen from the dead, that I may again in body walk the 
earth ; but in order that I may ascend to the Father." — Luther. 

360 



THE MORNING OF THE RESURRECTION. 

"And Mary hastes the word to bear : 
The brow of Olivet is fair, 
The Levite rings the bells of prayer, 
The new world wakes to light, — 
It is a world divine. 

" ' O Mary, woman never bore 
Such tidings to the world as thine.' 
'Twas Mary stood the cross before ; 
And met the angels at the door 
Of Jesus' tomb, — forevermore 
Hope's messenger divine."* 

After his sleep in the garden, the greetings of Jesus were 
not different from those on some ordinary morning : "All 
Hail;" "Mary." It was the calmness of one who knew 
that death was an incident of uninterrupted life, — of one 
alive forevermore. " He speaks out of his own deep tran- 
quillity, and desires to impart it to their agitated spirits ; he 
would calm their joy, that it may be the deeper, like his 
own." f 

* These lines and the quotation preceding, from the same poem, have 
been adapted from lines by an unknown writer, appearing in Messiah's 
Herald. 

It should be here remarked that Mary of Magdala, a wealthy woman 
who had been healed by our Lord, of a disease that we should call a form 
of insanity (Mark xvi : 9), is not to be identified with the woman whose 
name we do not know, " who was a sinner," and who anointed the feet 
of Jesus (Luke vii : 37). The painters of the world, and certain charities 
of the Church, have, however, confounded these two, as if they were the 
same person. Curiously, too, the act referred to in Luke vii: 37, has 
been sometimes confounded with that of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who 
also anointed the feet of our Lord (John xii : 5). So these two Marys 
have been confused with a nameless penitent, and made to bear her sins 
as well as her assurance of pardon from the Saviour of men. 

f Alexander McLaren, D.D. 

361 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

OETER eager and early at the sepulcher had seen ; and 
*T the swift running John had believed. Yet Jesus no 
longer went forth to seek first the apostolic company, 
but he searched for followers hitherto nameless. Had not 
his secret disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, 
come boldly to the front to challenge honors with the 
eleven in caring for their Lord ? Now comes Cleophas and 
his friend, with whom Jesus walked to Emmaus, seven 
miles into the country from Jerusalem. They told Jesus, 
as a stranger, "Our dream has passed away; and he 
which should have redeemed Israel, has now sunk down 
into a felon's grave." 

As they approached Emmaus, they lingered along the 
way, amid the olive groves, the lemon, or the orange ; their 
path running near the gardens with frequent shade, or fol- 
lowing a musical stream. And Jesus opened to them the 
Scriptures : teaching them that the Messiah ought to have 
suffered these things, and to enter into his glory. 

Not before, had these two favored ones been present at 
the breaking of bread, — " This is my body, broken for you." 
They had, however, heard the story ; and now they knew 
him. 



THE Saviour's love survived the tomb into which men 
had thrust him. Why, then, do we question whether 
love survives the grave ? Did not Jesus comfort the mourn- 
ing, the despairing ? 

362 



THE MORNING OF THE RESURRECTION. 

" Christ is risen : then the world is beautiful, — at is not 
a place of graves ; it is a place of graves that are to be 
opened. It is not the city of the dead, it is a portal of para- 
dise ; and there is light upon it every Easter morning, such 
as never was before on sea or shore until the Master had 
risen from the grave." * 



*The Rev. R. S. Stores, D.D., pastor of the Church of the Pil- 
grims, Brooklyn. 



— eg 




363 



CHAPTER TWO. 

Where was His Abode? 
<s*s> 



(5f|"~N the evening, Jesus appeared to ten of the apostles, 
as they were all together, after Cleophas and his 
friend had returned to Jerusalem. They had not 
believed the uncertain inference of John that our 
Lord must have risen, nor the words of Mary.* There 
was some chance that they would not go into Galilee, 
where they were to meet their Master. Joanna, and 
Mary the mother of James, had confirmed to them the 
words of Mary of Magdala ; but their words seemed to 
them as idle tales, and they believed them not. f Yet some- 
time during the day, Jesus had appeared to Peter j J and 
now they said, "The Lord is risen indeed." Still, these 
disciples, who were so soon to turn the world upside down, 
were slow, and cautious. They would not be convinced 
unless they themselves should become eye-witnesses. Some 
hesitated even now, after they had heard the stories of the 
embalming women, and the loving half-faith of John, — 
and the stout ringing affirmation of Peter, whom they more 

* John xx : 8. Mark xvi : 11. f Luke xxiv : 10, 11 . J I. Cor. xv : 5. 
[Book VIII.] 364 



THE FORTY DAYS. 

or less doubted. Their faith was hot yet firmly settled. 
And when the disciples from Emmaus came in,* "Neither 
believed they them." 

As they thus spake, came Jesus himself, as they sat at 
meat, and stood in the midst of them. The doors were shut 
for fear of the Jews, f They were terrified at the apparition 
of their Master, supposing that they saw a spirit. He 
saith unto them, " Peace be unto you." And when they were 
still affrighted, they were convinced that it was a genuine 
appearance of Jesus, by his upbraiding them with their 
unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not 
them which had seen him. 

And then he said, Why are ye troubled ? Behold my 
hands and my feet, that it is I myself : handle me, and see ; 
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. 
And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands, 
and his feet, and his side. Then were the disciples glad, 
when they saw the Lord. 

And yet they could not believe, for very joy. And while 
they wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here meat ? 
And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of a honey- 
comb ; and he took it, and did eat before them. 

These cautious, careful men, slow to believe, hard of 
heart against mere idle tales, had those characteristics 
which make good witnesses. And when they were once 
convinced that Jesus had really arisen from the dead, 
there was no power in the world that could s'hake their 

* Luke xxiv : 35. f Luke xxiv : 36-43. 

365 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

belief. They stood, they went, they flew, they filled the 
world with their testimony every hour, " The Lord is 
risen indeed." 

It was not to be thought of, they said, that he would rise. 
The centurion had been questioned, and Jesus had been 
legally proved to be dead. And now he was alive. He had 
laid down his life, and taken it again. Here was something 
beyond the ken of Caiaphas, and of Pilate. There must be 
a God in Israel. Their Messiah had come. 

Jesus had great respect for the honest doubters. They 
had perhaps understood and believed in the promises he 
had made concerning his resurrection,* as well as they had 
understood and believed many other affirmations of Jesus : 
that is, they had not immediately believed them. They 
were sayings that the disciples had laid up, to be pondered 
over. The great ideas by which Jesus had set forth the 
truth of the Incarnation, they were slow to understand and 
believe. And when the doubters did believe them, no mor- 
tal man could shake their testimony, f 

St. Thomas is commonly slandered, as if he were a pre- 
eminent doubter. The fact is that Jesus had already satis- 



* Matt, xvi : 21 ; and xx : 19 ; John ii : 19. 

f < < We must be careful to let nothing come between the doubter and 
Christ. The mighty concession that Christ himself gives to a soul in 
doubt is full of meaning : he did not allow Mary to touch his crucified 
body, yet did not withhold it from doubting Thomas. Let us lead every 
doubting soul straight to Christ, to his life, to his death, and, if need be, to 
his crucified and risen body." — President W. J. Tucker, D.D. 

366 



THE FORTY DAYS. 

fied ten of the apostles, by the same test that Thomas asked 
for : by his feet, his hands, and his side.* 

Or, if it be chronologically true that this occurred a 
week or eight days later, and if Thomas had refused to be 
satisfied with the testimony of ten apostles, as the ten had 
been unwilling to credit others, — then this emphasizes the 
more tne value of the Doubter's testimony, when he was 
once convinced ; and it illustrates the wisdom of Jesus in 
the choice of so cautious a disciple. 

In laying the foundation for a kingdom to endure 
throughout the ages, and in selecting eye-witnesses to testify 
upon so important a fact as his own resurrection, it is much 
to the point that Jesus picked out men of hard good sense. 
They were not poets or enthusiasts, — not one of them. 
They were men who could sleep soundly, even at critical 
junctures ; f and who could not be imposed upon when 
they were wide awake. Had it been otherwise, other men 
would not have believed their testimony. They were 
credible witnesses ; inspiring confidence in average men 
like themselves. 

Well did they repay the patience of the Master, who 
surrounded them with the arms of his all-encircling love. 
Bruised reeds, he forbore to break ; smoking flax, he never 
quenched. He found the least sign of celestial fire. Having 
loved his own, he loved them unto the end. J 

* Luke xxiv : 39, 40 ; John xx : 24-28. 

f As upon the mount of transfiguration, and at Gethsemane. 

J John xiii : 1 . 

367 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

WE come now to a strange part of this critical period in 
the instruction given by our Saviour to the apostolic 
college. He had to teach them, not too abruptly, a further 
lesson as to the true relation between disciple and Master. 
" Not one of them before his death," suggests Dr. William 
Hanna, " had risen to any thought or belief in his Divinity. 
They had to be raised to the belief, that it was the very 
Lord of heaven and earth with whom they had been hold- 
ing converse." Did not this, he asks, forbid " a return to 
all the old familiarities of his former intercourse" ? 

It has been suggested by others, that Jesus intended to 
discipline the apostles in relying on themselves before his 
ascension. This was exactly what he did not do. If he 
had, — they would have gone a-flshing. He taught them, 
rather, to rely on the Paraclete ; and to pray for the Para- 
clete ; and to go forth to testify concerning himself, and to 
disciple all nations, — when they were endued for this work 
by the appearance of the Paraclete. 

On the whole, perhaps, the suggestion of Dr. Hanna is 
a good one. And it is certain that nothing could be better 
fitted to the end sought than the course Jesus took. He no 
longer '''abode" with his disciples, as to his physical pres- 
ence. In forty days there are only six instances recorded 
of his appearance, after the day of the resurrection ; and 
all these interviews appear to have been brief. There is a 
mystery about it ; as if he had no abode.* " We get from 

* The one point proved is that he had the same body, now healed, 
that had been crucified. Yet his mode of life was like a miracle. When 

368 



THE FORTY DAYS. 

the New Testament," says Dr. Poswell D. Hitchcock, " in 
regard to these forty days, an impression of unobtrusiveness 
on the part of Christ, a certain reserve and remoteness, 
almost semi-spiritual and shadowy, as evinced in sudden, 
unexpected appearings and disappearing^, changes of foraij 
and silent gliding in and out of secluded and fastened 
chambers ; as if the feet, which were so soon to tread the 
yielding air ascending to the Father, were already lighten- 
ing their pressure upon the solid earth.* 



3UCH a course as this, on the part of Jesus, had its 
effect upon intensely practical men, like Peter, 
Thomas, Nathanael, James, and John. Without su- 
perstition as to the comings and goings of Jesus, thev 
were competent men in a business way ; and if there wat 
some uncertainty as to the course they should take as disci- 
ples, they could at least return to their former calling, upon 
the sea of Tiberias, f Peter seems to have been the leader 
in this movement. He needed further instruction, and 



he multiplied bread, the bread he made was substantial. When he con- 
tinued his life, during forty days without apparent fixed abode, it was a 
true carnal life. There was no spiritual body till the Ascension. " During 
those forty days," says Farrar, "his body was not liable to merely 
human laws." 

*It is Tholuck who says : "He does not appear to be of the earth, 
for he comes only ' many times ' to the disciples : and where is he when 
not with them? The twilight envelops our Lord, but it is morning 
twilight. The night lies behind him." 

f John xxi : 1-14. 

369 24 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

proof of the true character of Jesus. After the Ascension, 
he fished no more, except for men. 

After Jesus had dined with the seven upon the old 
familiar shore, occurred that questioning of Peter * by our 
Lord, which betokened his own confidence and love, and 
indicated the work the apostle was to do in the place of 
fishing. 

" With the threefold denial," says Tholuck, " corre- 
sponds, the triple hammer-stroke of this question on the 
heart of Peter : " Lovest thou me?" It is but the same 
searching question that anticipates the Judgment for every 
man. 

" Follow thou me," said Jesus to Peter, as his closing 
injunction. And then, when Peter sought to make one 
more diversion,! before implicitly following, our Lord re- 
plied, "What is that to thee ? Follow thou me." A war- 
rant, indeed, for every man to imitate Christ. 

'Tf.GAESr Jesus met the apostles, upon some Galilean moun- 
l\ tain, J by special appointment ; and here most likely 
the five hundred brethren referred to by St. Paul,§ — 
who affirmed that the greater part of the five hundred were 
living and testifying twenty years after. Indeed, there 
were so many witnesses, and the tests were so decisive as 
to the reality of Jesus' bodily presence, and the reappear- 
ances were so frequent during the forty days, that St. Luke 

* John xxi : 15-23. f J° lm xxi : 19-22. J Matt, xxviii : 16. 
§1. Cor. xv : 6. 

370 



THE FORTY DAYS. 

has written that our Lord "showed himself alive after his 
passion, by many infallible proofs." * The proof rested 
upon men hard to be convinced, but who were convinced. 

At this point, says St. Luke, f Jesus explained to the 
eleven and to a large company of his followers the Mosaic, 
lyric, and prophetic Scriptures that related to himself, and 
that it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
the third day, — as he had already spoken to the same point 
in conversing with the disciples of Emmaus. 

Either here upon the mountain, or at his subsequent 
appearance to all the apostles, J Jesus commissioned his 
disciples to go forth into all the world, preaching the 
Gospel of repentance and remission of sins through his 
name, teaching all nations to observe all things whatsoever 
he had commanded, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. § 

This startling mandate gave Peter other work than 
fishing. Yet its performance was not to depend on poor 
Peter. It was to depend upon the Paraclete. In leaving 
his disciples, they were to tarry in Jerusalem until the 
coming of the Paraclete. || They were not to be diverted, 
the Master said, by curious questions as to Israel and a 

*Actsi: 3. 

f Compare Acts i : 3, with Luke xxiv : 44-48. 

$ At about this time, Jesus was also seen of James, alone. I. Cor. 
xv: 7. 

§Matt. xxviii: 18-20. Luke xxiv: 47, 48. Acts i: 4-S. I. Cor. 
xv : 7. 

|| Luke xxiv : 49. Acts i : 4-8. 

371 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

king ; but they were to await the coming of the Paraclete, 
and then they were to go forth, witnessing what they had 
seen and heard, testifying concerning his own life and 
death and resurrection. 

Henceforth, the discipling of the whole world was to be 
the main business of the followers of Jesus, endued with 
the power of the Holy Ghost. Henceforth, an angel was 
to fly over the awakening earth, having the everlasting 
Gospel, to preach in every nation and kindred, and tongue, 
and people.* Henceforth, it would be seen and known that 
the death of Jesus was really no interruption of his life 
mission, and his ceaseless influence among men, till all 
earthly empires should be included in his kingdom. 

And now, in the baptismal formula, in what he had 
said concerning the Holy Spirit in the hour before his 
betrayal, and in what was said at this moment, he indicated 
his own unity with the Power by which they were to be 
endued, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the world." f 



Always ^vith. Us. 

With us, when the storm is sweeping 
O'er our pathway dark and drear ; 

Waking hope within our bosoms, 
Stilling every anxious fear." 



* Rev. xiv : 6. 

f Matt, xxviii : 19 ; John xiv : 16-18, 26 ; and xv : 26 ; and xvi : 7 
13-15 ; Matt, xxviii : 20. 

372 



THE FORTY DAYS. 

Forsake Nie Not. 

Forsake me not, Thou life of life to me ; 
Though death and sin 
Attempt within 
To chain and reign, and never set me free. 
To Thee I ever cry, 
To Thee I haste and fly ; 
On high I mount in thought 
While low I bend the knee, — 
Forsake me not, forsake me not. 

Forsake me not, Thou death of sin in me ; 
Wilt Thou draw nigh 
To crucify 
My body's sin, of sinful soul the key? 
I ask for nail and thorn, — 
And resurrection morn ; 
To die and live, my lot. 
In both I cling to Thee, — 
Forsake me not, forsake me not. 




373 




CHAPTER THREE. 

Opening the Heavenly Gates. 
• <&$• — ^x^ — -$$> 

'PON the eighteenth of May, the apostolic company * 
was led forth by their Master to the eastern slope 
of Olivet, and there upon highlands above 
Bethany, yet hidden from it by a ridge, 
upon a site looking out far over the wilderness, within sight 
of the Jordan and its southern sea, Jesus lifted up his hands 
and blessed them ; and it came to pass, while he blessed 
them, he was parted from them, and a cloud received him 
out of their sight. 

It is a mystery. He was changed, in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye ; his corruptible put on incorruption, 
his mortal put on immortality, mortality was swallowed up 
of life, and alive he was caught up in the clouds, f " Jesus 
moved upward, as if lifted from the earth by some celestial 
attraction." | "As he floats upward through the yielding 
air," says Dr. Hanna, "his eyes are bent on the uplook- 
ing men ; his arms are stretched over them in the attitude 

* Luke xxiv : 50, 51. Acts i : 9. 

f I. Cor. xv : 51-53. II. Cor. v : 4. I. Thess. iv ; 17. Phil, iii : 21. 
% Alexander B. Bruce, D.D. 
[Book VIII.] 374 



OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. 

of benediction, his voice is heard dying away in blessings as 
he ascends, till the cloud closes the earthly communion be- 
tween Jesus and his disciples."* 

From earth to sky, he upward soars ; 

The host on high, in triumph waits ; 

Lift up your heads, O heavenly gates ; 
Swing back, O everlasting doors, f 

"God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound 
of a trumpet." He who bowed the heavens, and came 
down, has now ascended up where he was before. " I am 
he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive forever- 
more." 

He hath ascended up to heaven, who came down from 
heaven, the Son of Man which is in heaven ; and he is 
there surrounded by a great multitude which no man can 
number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, 
clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. 

That body so worn by cares, so exhausted by bloody 



* " Man in the form that rises, God in the power that bears Him to 
his Father's throne." — Bishop Ellicott. 

f " O thou Man of Sorrows — O Lord Jesus, thou who wert a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief, we rejoice that thy sorrows are past. 
All the privations of thy life on earth are past. The contradiction of 
sinners against thyself, which thou didst endure, is past. Thine agony in 
the garden, thy bloody sweat, thy sufferings on the cross, thy slumber in 
the grave, — all are past. And thou hast ascended triumphantly, attended 
by convoys of angels, and the heavenly gates were lifted up, and the ever- 
lasting doors gave way, whilst thou, the King of Glory, didst enter and 
take possession of thy throne, God over all, blessed forever." — Frag- 
ment of a public x^rauer by Dr. Lyman Beecher, Boston, Oct., 1851. 

375 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

sweat, so lashed by cruel blows, so bruised and speared be- 
fore he died, is now adorned with the robe of heaven's 
King. 

Those feet that bore messages of peace over the moun- 
tains of Israel, that walked on the sea to rescue his dis- 
ciples, those feet that bore him to midnight prayers on the 
hilltops, those weary feet that walked in the garden and 
were torn by the spikes, those feet now have the earth for a 
footstool and now bruise the head of the Serpent. 

Those hands that broke bread for the famishing multi- 
tude, that healed the eyes of the blind, that blessed little 
children, that wielded the cords and scourged traders from 
God's holy house, those hands that once took hold of the 
cross and were too weak for the burden, that were stretched 
and pierced on that cross, those hands now hold up the 
heavens and to-day rescue the needy, and to-day bear the 
scepter of the universe. 

Those lips that hungered in the wilderness and were 
parched on the cross, those lips that opened to bless the 
multitudes and to curse hypocrites, those lips that were 
pressed by traitorous Judas, and that tasted the vinegar 
and the gall, those lips now give wisdom to the angels and 
cheer the redeemed forever. 

Those eyes that wept over Jerusalem, and that pitied 
the multitude, and that closed in death, now shine clear as 
the lights of heaven and gladden that world where there 
is no need of the sun and where there is no night, where 
the Lord is the light thereof. 

Those ears that once heard the cry of the needy, and 

376 



OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. 

listened to the complaints of disciples, and that were pierced 
with the cry of the furious multitude, " Crucify him, crucify 
him ! " now hear the praises of the angels and the new 
song, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, 
and glory, and blessing." 

That face which was so often charged with pity, or 
righteous anger, or holy sorrow, that face which was spit 
upon, is now radiant with the joy of heaven, and the per- 
fect bliss of Infinite Holiness and Infinite Love. That head 
on which the Dove of God descended, that head which had 
no place of rest, which was smitten, and which wore thorns, 
and hung helpless on the cross, now wears the crown of 
everlasting joy. 

" As this Man then," says the Bishop of Chartres, * 
"Jesus Christ, restored to his country, returns, as it were, 
by the right of recall, — the whole city, the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, goes out to meet him with the Father ; the whole 
multitude of angels, the thousand thousands that minister 
to him, and the ten thousand times ten thousand that stand 
before him, — they embrace his feet, and bear him up on 
their shoulders to the throne of heaven. For thus it is 
written in the Psalms, ' The chariots of God are twenty 
thousand, even thousands of angels ' ; and the Lord is 
among them as in the holy place of Sinai, O the joy, O the 
solemnity, O the triumph, O the jubilation, O the exulta- 
tion, O the everlasting gladness ! 

* At the beginning of the twelfth century. 

377 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" Some exclaim, 'Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own 

strength.' Others, ' Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place, 
thou and the ark of thy strength.' 

" Some, ' Who is the King of glory ? ' Others, ' The 
Lord of hosts, the Lord strong and mighty in battle.' 

" Some, ' Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 
garments from Bozrah ? ' Others, ' He that is glorious in 
apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength.' " 

And so the songs echo and re-echo throughout all the 
heavenly country • and the most distant spheres are glad, 
and the morning stars again sing together, and all crea- 
tion rejoices, and triumphal hymns are resounding in all 
parts of Christ's dominion. 

Nor were these happy hymns of everlasting joy wanting 
in the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, — for the apostolic 
band first "worshiped him" who had been parted from 
them, and then they "returned to Jerusalem with great 
joy ; and were continually in the temple, praising and bless- 
ing God." * 

They kept no longer in hiding for fear of the Jews : 
they had Jehovah at their back. They stood before him, 
the representatives upon earth of his mercy in Jesus Christ. 
Did not Moses and Elijah, too, stand by them ? " Two 
men stood by them in white apparel, f From them, they 
heard the proclamation of a second coming : and they at 
once set about preparing the earth for their Lord, — creating 
it anew through the power of the Paraclete. To this work 

*Luke xxiv : 52, 53. f Acts i: 10, 11. 

378 



OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. 

they went forth with exceeding joy, for they had seen the 
hands of Jesus stretched out to bless them: "Wherever 
they stood, wherever they went, the blessing hands were 
before their eyes." * 

Collect for Ascension Day. 

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that as we 
believe thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ 
to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart 
and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, 
who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, One 
God, world without end. Amen." 

* Tholuck. 






379 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

Confident Witnesses. 
<s><s> 

[Introductory Note. — Although the preceding chapter closes the 
story of the life of our Lord, it yet remains to allude to the connection 
between the life and death and resurrection of Jesus and the beginnings of 
Christianity as an organized force in the world, — a connection clear enough 
when we know the views concerning Christ that were at once entertained 
by his disciples after his resurrection.] 

'T is apparent that the disciples did not anticipate the 
resurrection of Christ. They had not understood his 
allusions to it before it took place, nor did the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures seem to them to point to it. If they 
had been expecting it, they would have been on the look- 
out for it. Instead of that, they forsook Jesus, and fled ; 
and if there had been no resurrection, their hope in him as 
the Messiah would never have revived. " Without some 
such event," says James Freeman Clarke, "Christianity 
would have been buried forever in the Master's grave." 

Instead, however, of giving it up, they began at once to 
appear boldly, confronting all the foes of Jesus with the 
proclamation that their Master had risen from the dead. In- 
stead of it being sundown with them, it was sunrise ; in the 
place of gloom was gladness ; hope rose in lieu of despair ; 

[Book VII1.1 380 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

the weak became strong ; the mourners rejoiced ; those 
crushed by the death of Jesus, changed their tone, — they 
did not merely believe, but they were certain that their 
Redeemer lived. They did not talk like men who had lost 
their Lord.* There was in their testimony a cheerful, jubi- 
lant proclamation. They had the ring of eternal victory in 
their voices. They knew in whom they had believed. 



IT is most to the point, that, from this time on, the apostles 
made it their one business in life to testify concerning 
Jesus Christ ; they became his witnesses. 

It is impossible to find adequate terms in which to 
express their consummate folly in doing this, if Jesus had 
not risen from the dead. They had seen the entire ecclesi- 
astical machinery of the Jewish church set to the work of 
crushing Christ ; and they had seen the populace join the 
priests, when there were more than two millions gathered 
at their chief religious festival ; they had seen the power of 
Rome crucify Jesus as a sham king. Should they, there- 
fore, at once put aside all other business, and devote them- 
selves to a scheme for getting themselves killed, by agree- 
ing together, some five hundred of them, to lie, and to lie in 
season and out of season by system, saying that Jesus had 
risen from the dead and that they had seen him ? Would 
they risk it for a lie, when the peril had been so great that 

" The eleven grieved not for their Lord's disappearance. They had 
gained, not lost, a friend." — The Rev. Alex. B. Bruce, D.D. 

381 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Jesus scattered them upon his own arrest, and when they 
gathered only in secret * for fear of the triumphant and 
determined priests ? 

It is not only morally impossible for those timid, despair- 
ing, cautious disciples to have invented a falsehood which 
would certainly insure their further persecution ; but from 
their standpoint they would have had nothing to build to if 
Jesus had not risen from the dead, — there being nothing in 
their concept of the ancient Scriptures, or their apprehen- 
sion of the words of Jesus, to warrant it. They would have 
had to invent an unheard-of fact, that no one would credit. 
And it would .falsify all our knowledge of the way men 
actually do under such circumstances, to believe that they 
first made an incredible lie that risked their own safety, and 
then propagated it, — not only with an enthusiasm of self- 
devotement, but with a purity of life so new to the world 
that they have been the admiration of all subsequent ages. 



WHEN ye have lifted up the Son of Man," said Jesus, 
"then shall ye know that I am he." \ And in order 
that they might know, he insisted upon it that his "wit- 
nesses" should begin to testify immediately, while the 
facts were fresh, and his opponents living ; J and to begin 
at Jerusalem, the very spot where, if anywhere, it could be 
told at once whether they told the truth ; and where, if 
anywhere, it was for the interest of an acute, wily, and 

* John xx : 19. f John viii : 28. \ Luke xxiv : 47. Acts i ■' 18. 

382 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

powerful body of men, who malignantly slew Christ as a 
blasphemer, to deny and disprove false statements, — since 
if he had arisen it would settle all doubt of his Messiahship, 
and convict them of his death. There were five hundred 
professed witnesses all told, at least a hundred and twenty 
of them living in Jerusalem ; if they had banded together 
to forge a lie, the cunning, talented, learned seventy elders, 
the lawyers, scribes, and Pharisees, with all their priestly 
craft, and the Roman power to back them up, could have 
found it out. With one half the zeal the foes of Jesus 
manifested in killing him, they could have disproved a 
lie agreed upon by hundreds of scattered witnesses. It 
would have been easy if Jesus had not risen from the 
grave, for his enemies to find and produce his body, and 
disprove beyond all question those who testified falsely.* 
If Pilate made sure that Jesus was dead, \ he could, if he 
had been egged on by Caiaphas to do 'it, have found out 
whether five hundred Jews were lying, in affirming that 
Jesus was alive and that they had seen him, — thus so 
greatly injuring Judaism as to threaten to destroy it. Yet 
it was under these circumstances, that the testimony of the 
disciples of Jesus to his resurrection gained such credit that 
the believers were at once numbered by thousands. \ 

* The only serious attempt made to deny the resurrection was the 
bribing of the guard to say that while they slept, the body was stolen. If 
they were asleep, they could not know whether he arose, or whether he 
had been removed. Before they were bribed, they evidently told the 
story as St. Matthew did, — xxviii : 2-4. 

f Mark xv : 44. John xix : 34. 

X In preparing this paragraph, the Author is, in certain particulars, 

383 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

The apostles were not men of the social and political 
influence needful to establish a false doctrine, — they were 
men who for the most part got their living by catching fish ; 
if they had attempted the business of setting up a new 
religion founded on a lie, and overturning Judaism by it, 
and conquering Rome by it, they were not the kind of men 
who could have succeeded. They were, however, of the 
stuff that made good witnesses.* And St. Paul affirms f 
that of the five hundred who saw Christ after his resurrec- 
tion, the most were alive a score of years after the event. 
This was a body of testimony steadfastly abiding for 
twenty years, eye-witnesses who could not be got rid of. 
It established the fact beyond all recall. 

The apostles went forth, and preached everywhere, the 
Lord working with them by the power of the Holy One. 
" We are witnesses," said Peter to Cornelius, " of all things 
which Jesus did ; and he commanded us to preach and to 
testify." t 

Fifty days after the crucifixion, there were three 
thousand Jews converted to the belief in the Messiahship 

indebted to a Sermon upon the Resurrection, by Rev. Asa P. Tenney, 
preached before the General Association of New Hampshire, 1855. Com- 
pare pages 10-14. 

*Prof. George P. Fisher has called attention to the slow and 
sure formation of the faith of the apostles : « < The genius and growth of 
John's faith was indissolubly connected with the teachings and miracles 
which he records. How often after one of these records, it is added that 
his disciples believed. He shows what it was, and why it was, that he 
and his companions believed." 

fl. Cor. xv : 6,7. JMarkxvi: 20. Acts x : 39, 42. 

384 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

of Jesus. In his sermon upon this occasion,* the apostle 
Peter referred to the miracles wrought by Jesus, "as ye 
yourselves also know " ; and to the death of Jesus, whom 
" ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified " ; and 
to the resurrection, "this Jesus hath God raised up, 
whereof we all are witnesses." 

It is recorded,! that " the number of the disciples multi- 
plied in Jerusalem greatly ; and a great company of the 
priests were obedient to the faith." And when J St. Paul 
made a report of his work among the Gentiles to the 
brethren in Jerusalem, they said, "Thou seest how many 
thousands of Jews there are which believe." Dean Alford 
cites the testimony of Hegesippus, an ancient Christian 
writer, that at one time, from the number of rulers who be- 
lieved, the scribes and Pharisees feared that the whole 
nation would acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. A vast 
number did so receive him, before the fall of Jerusalem. 

We behold, then, that paradox alluded to by Ernest 
Naville, "Under the government of Providence, the world 
ends by following that which it begins by rejecting : by 
the hands of the Jews, humanity nailed Jesus to a tree ; 
then at the call of a few fishermen and of a tentmaker, it 
relents, and follows him." This mighty moral miracle, 
however, but shows the power of the Paraclete — the present 
Christ unfolding his Kingdom upon the earth — with 
which the disciples of Jesus were endued after their prayer- 
ful tarrying in Jerusalem between the Ascension and Pen- 

* Acts ii : 22-32. f Acts vi : 7. % Acts xxi : 20. 

385 25 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

tecost.* It was to them the same as if Jesus triumphant 
had remained with them. And their witness for him was 
clear, and unmistakable: "That which we have heard, 
which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have 
looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of 
life, declare we unto you." 

THERE is no criticism in modern days that is of the 
slightest pertinence, pertaining to the Gospel story, 
unless it relates to the main proof of the mission of Jesus, 
— his resurrection. If that be granted, everything else 
goes with it ; if that be disproved, everything else goes 
with it. This is the crucial point in respect to the main 
question — the Incarnation. If Jesus was the Son of God, 
all particulars of the Bible record are credible enough ; if 
he was not, then nobody cares whether they are credible 
or not. 

"That Christ rose from the dead," says Canon Liddon, 
"depends on the same sort of testimony as any event in 
the life of Caesar ; with this difference, that no one ever 
thought it worth while to risk his life in order to maintain 
that Caasar defeated Vercingetorix or Pompey. . . If the 
testimony which can be produced in proof of the Resurrec- 
tion concerned only a political occurrence, or a fact of nat- 
ural history witnessed eighteen centuries ago, nobody 
would think of denying its cogency. Those who do reject 

* Luke xxiv : 49. Acts i : 4, 5, 13, 14. 

386 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

the truth of the Resurrection, quarrel, for the most part, not 
with the proof that the Resurrection occurred, but with the 
supposition that such a thing could happen in any circum- 
stances." 

This is, however, greatly understating the testimony. 
The Hon. Edward J. Phelps, Kent Professor of Law, and 
Lecturer on Equity and International Law, in Yale Uni- 
versity, and late United States Minister to England, has 
stated that " The title to most of the land in the world, and 
to a large extent the facts of descent and legitimacy, the 
validity of contracts, the existence of rights, and the deter- 
mination of disputes," rest upon "the rules of evidence 
established by the common law"; under which, "when 
ancient facts which depend upon the personal knowledge 
of witnesses are in question and need to be determined 
long after the witnesses and the circumstances that at- 
tended them have passed away, the lapse of time when ac- 
companied by general acquiescence in the truth of the facts 
on the part of those who would be interested to deny them 
is taken as establishing a conclusive presumption that they 
are true and not open to contradiction." "The substantial 
facts upon which Christianity is founded are within the 
scope and effect of this indispensable rule." "Time and 
the general assent of humanity have thus established the 
truth of the fundamental facts of Christianity. It is now 
too late to deny them, or to controvert them by cavil or 
criticism over evidence that so long passed beyond the 
region of human scrutiny. And the faith, so far as it 
depends upon the testimony of men, rests upon the same 

387 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

foundation that justice, experience, and necessity concur in 
according to all facts on which the rights of mankind re- 
pose, after the witnesses are gone." *. 

That is to say : any theorist, who undertakes seriously 
to question the fact of our Lord's resurrection, is like one 
who hopes to unsettle certain land titles and legal rights of 
Europe which have been settled nearly two thousand years, 
or to lead the scholarship of the world to seriously doubt 
such historic facts as the mode of Csesar's death or that of 
Leonidas. From a jurist's point of view, it is too late to 
undertake it. Civilization would be overturned and man- 
kind would return to barbarism, if the mode of reasoning 
relied on to overturn belief in the resurrection of Jesus 
were to be successfully applied to ancient facts that under- 
lie the security of our modern civil and social life. 

Yet, if our Lord rose from the dead, he was a Divine 
messenger • and his affirmations concerning his own mission 
are true ; and his lesser miracles are true ; and God has 
certainly made known his love to man in the Incarnation. 

As a matter of fact, all the Chief Justices of the United 
States have been Christians, and have given in their testi- 
mony to the fact of our Lord's resurrection, accepting it on 
the legal evidence of its truth under the rules of evidence 
established by the common law. 



* Compare report of Professor Phelps' Address before the Divinity 
School at Yale University, as published in the Author's Triumphs of the 
Cross, pp. 200, 201, Boston, 1895. 



388 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 



THERE is, therefore, no more reason to doubt the princi- 
pal facts which account for the existence of the Chris- 
tian Church than those which account for popular liberty in 
England and America. The change of day for Sabbath 
observance which had been in vogue since the Mosaic era, 
the introduction of baptism in the place of Abrahamic 
custom, the observance of the Lord's Supper in the place 
of the passover, are as truly based upon the resurrection of 
Jesus as the observance of the Fourth of July is based upon 
the accomplished fact of American independence ; neither 
of these three monumental Christian customs would have 
been possible, if our Lord had never risen from the dead. 
They indicate a general acceptance of the fact, upon satis- 
factory evidence at the time. 

Another indication is that of the disappearance of the 
expectation of a Messiah, and the final breaking away 
from Judaism of a great body of Jews who accepted Jesus 
on proof of his resurrection, and who were successful in 
maintaining their position and making a constant gain in 
the number of their adherents, until the Christians took 
possession of the Roman empire. It was said by one of the 
early church fathers that tradition nailed Christ to the 
cross. This traditional system was thereafter preserved 
only as a system of antiquated custom. The resurrection 
of Jesus revolutionized the thought of a great multitude of 
the Jewish people, and gave vitality to a new ideal of life 
as it had been set forth in the life of Jesus, and adapted the 

389 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

new ideal to the whole world instead of restricting it to 
Palestine or an isolated people.* 

"Nothing," says Ewald, "stands more historically cer- 
tain than that Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared 
again to his followers ; or than that their seeing him thus 
again was the beginning of a higher faith, and of all their 
Christian work in the world." " Without it," says Neander, 
" they never could have had that inspiring assurance of 
faith with which they everywhere testified of what they 
had received, and joyfully submitted to tortures and to 
death." 

As a matter of history, the Church of Christ was founded 
on the fact of the resurrection, in the sense that it could 
not have come into existence after the death of our Lord, if 
he had not risen from the dead. "It was erected upon his 
empty tomb." f The achievement of popular liberty, in no 
part of the globe, is more perfectly attested, by monumental 
records and customs, than the triumph of Christ over the 
ignominy of the cross and a grave. 

The moral evidence is equivalent to a certainty for all 
practical purposes, as tested by our mode of reasoning on 
all ordinary matters ; there being an overwhelming balance 
of probability of its truth, — and the conduct of life is based 
upon probability. If probability is our guide in the affairs 

*" From that day, place was nothing, form was nothing ; from that 
day the only temple was the soul, the only ritual the offering of a free 
heart." — C. J. Vaughan, D.D. 

fPROF. Ciiristoph Ernst Luthardt, Ph.D., D.D., of the Uni- 
versity of Leipsic. 

390 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

of life, then our moral certainty of the truth of the resur- 
rection of Jesus — carrying with it as it does the over- 
whelming proof of the incarnation of the infinite love of 
God to mankind — is our guide to eternal life.* 



THE resurrection of Jesus transformed the cross from the 
symbol of shame to a symbol of the character of 
Christ. It was as great a change as it would be, if now the 
gallows could be redeemed from its infamy and be sud- 
denly invested with glory, and if the gallows were to become 
henceforth the symbol most sacred to the entire civilized 
world. This change could not have been effected if Jesus 
had not risen from the dead. The triumph of the cross as a 
symbol testifies to our Lord's resurrection. 



*" Unless," says Dr. R. S. Storrs, in his Sermon upon An Unrisen 
Christ, "unless all judicial processes of inquiry into alleged facts are mere 
confusion and bewilderment, the fact of our Lord's resurrection is 
established certainly, upon constant evidence, by a sufficient number of 
unimpeachable witnesses. Something held the apostles together, gave 
them continual inspiration ; something told them that the Church was to 
live and be triumphant. Christendom never came from an unbroken 
grave. It would have been buried in that grave, as Judas thought it was 
going to be, and as the Jews thought it was going to be, except there had 
been a resurrection from the dead. Our whole civilization rests on the 
broken Cross of the Master, — and it is incredible that a civilization like 
this, in a world advancing steadily for eighteen centuries, has been 
founded on a lie. You impeach the sanity of the race in that statement. 
"No, it is founded upon a rock, the faith of the Christian. God has built 
the truth of the resurrection of Christ into the history of mankind. He 
has made it as certain as if it were written on the arch of heaven. " 

391 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" The sign of universal execration," says Chrysostom, 
"the sign of extremest punishment, has now become the 
object of universal longing and love. We see it every- 
where triumphant : we find it in houses, on the roofs and 
the walls ; in cities and villages ; on the market place, the 
great roads, and in deserts ; on mountains and in valleys ; 
on the sea, on ships ; on books and on weapons ; on wearing 
apparel, in the marriage chamber, at banquets, on vessels of 
gold and of silver, in pearls, in pictures on the walls, on 
beds ; in the dances of those going to pleasure, and in the 
associations of those that mortify their bodies." 

" All the glory of Christ's example," says Orviile Dewey, 
" all the graciousness of his purposes, shine most brightly 
on the cross. The death of Jesus is the life of the world." 
It is fitting then that the cross be exalted, that all men may 
gaze on the dying Galilean. "How calmly yet mightily 
has the cross preached through all time, in palace, cottage, 
and cell."* 

Upon Easter day, in the chapel erected over the tradi- 
tional spot of our Saviour's crucifixion, it is said, that " across 
the marble floor, hour after hour in endless succession, 
pilgrims of many nations and of many tongues move 
slowly on their knees, with streaming tears and every mani- 
festation of deep and reverential devotion ; and when they 
reach the sacred rock in which they believe that the cross 
was fixed, they cover it with passionate kisses." f " I, if I 
be lifted up," said our Lord, " will draw all men unto me." 

* Tholuck. f The Rev. R. W. Dale, D.D. 

392 



APOSTOLIC WITNESSES. 

To him are all men drawn most truly, when they are al- 
ways bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest. So it 
was said concerning our early apostle to the Indians, John 
Eliot, that he " became so nailed to the cross of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, that the grandeurs of this world were unto 
him just what they would be to a dying man." 

" Live," cried Luther, " as though Christ had died yes- 
terday, risen to-day, and were coming to-morrow." 




393 




CHAPTER FIVE. 

The F'asch.al Lamb. 

WHAT is faith's foundation strong? 
What awakes my lips to song ? 
He who bore my sinful load 
Purchased for me peace with God, 
Jesus Christ, the Crucified." * 

HIS is an epitome of the Gospel, said Luther, that 
God so loved the world that he gave his only begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not 
perish, but have everlasting life. The "witnesses" sent 
forth by our Lord taught that he was a Saviour. It was 
the presentation of a fact and not a theory : they made no 
pretense to set forth the philosophy of the Atonement ; the 
fact they insisted upon. The fact so stated, proved a great 
power in propagating faith in a Risen Redeemer. 

" If the death of Jesus was wholly voluntary/' says Dr. 
R. S. Storrs, " then it was either a suicide or a sacrifice : a 
suicide, unjustified to our minds by any sufficient resulting 
benefit : or a sacrifice, made necessary to man's salvation 

*B. H. Kennedy, D.D., Rector of West Felton, England. 
[Book VIII.] 394 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 

by the evilness and the doom of sin, and by the wise right- 
eousness of God." 

Whatever the apostles taught they learned of the Mas- 
ter. In Luke xxiv : 44-48, Jesus reminded them of what 
he had previously taught concerning the fulfillment of 
Scripture in himself, and he then further expounded the 
ancient words, showing that it was needful for him to suffer 
and to rise from the dead ; and he commanded them to 
preach " repentance and remission of sins in his name 
among all nations." The language of the fifty-third of 
Isaiah is so remarkable* that St. Jerome once said, "Isa- 
iah seems to me not to have composed a prophecy, but 
the Gospel." It is to such passages that St. Peter refers ; \ 
and St. Paul, when he speaks of Jesus as " delivered up by 
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," and 
that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures," \ 
and that " God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." § And 
St. Peter, "filled with the Holy Ghost," said "Neither is 
there salvation in any other ; for there is none other name 
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be 
saved."|| 

Dr. John Hall, of New York, has said that he did not 
have to invent a plan of redemption but preach the one 
God provided. " The power of the great sacrifice for the 



* Isa. liii : 5, 8-12. f I. Pet. i: 11, % I. Cor. xv : 3. § Eph. iv : 32. 

|| Acts iv : 8, 12. Compare the words of Peter to the high priest, Acts 
v : 31 ; and to Cornelius, Acts x : 43. 

395 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

sins of the world lies in itself," said Dr. R. W. Dale of 
Birmingham, "and not in our explanation of it : even when 
the doctrine of the Church has been most corrupt, the death 
of Christ has continued to appeal to the hearts of men with 
unique and all but irresistible force.* 

It is like a little Gospel adapted to be carried to every 
household, that all the families of the earth may be blessed 
in Christ : — 

God came in the flesh ; he told us about the Father, 
revealing what we know of the moral character of the 
Creator : this is his Book ; the substance of it, as to duty, is 
to love God with all the heart, and your neighbor as your- 
self, — if this you do, it is practical repentance, and you are 
forgiven by God's mercy through Christ. 

" You lie, you steal," said Russell the missionary in 
Africa. He said it seven years, but no one repented. He 
then told the pagans about the Atonement, and they re- 
pented. John Paton in the New Hebrides, and Patteson 
the martyr, preached positive truths, the love of God, and 
choice of God. The miracle of the world's transformation 
has been like that wrought in the early ages, by the apos- 
tolic preaching of Christ and him crucified. 

"Christ's whole life," says Thomas a Kempis, "was a 
cross and a martyrdom ; and dost thou seek rest and joy 
for thyself ? " The story is an unceasing appeal for living 
an exalted life. " The Bridegroom," says Tauler, " suffered 
shame, hunger, cold, thirst, heat, and bitter pains for three 

* Consult Supplemental Note at the end of this chapter. 

396 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 

and thirty years, and at last a bitter death, for the Bride's 
sake, out of pure love." The whole life of Christ was an 
expiation.* It was this which gave wings to the feet of the 
apostles. There is no more astonishing story in the New 
Testament than that of the transformation of St. Peter, 
from an impulsive and sometimes craven disciple, fond of 
fishing, to a man with a message, — who charged the high 
priest to his face with having murdered the Messiah, and 
who heeded no prison doors or stripes, but went into the 
temple daily and into every house with his Gospel story, f 
It was this which determined St. Paul to know nothing but 
Christ and him crucified. J; 

Are there not to-day many pearls in the deep ungath- 



*This is what is meant by Padre Agostino da Montefeltro, when 
he says, "As there are sins of the heart, sins of the spirit, and sins 
of the body, the Lord Jesus chose to expiate the sins of the heart by his 
agony in Gethsemane ; he chose to expiate the sins of the spirit by his 
humiliation before the tribunals ; he chose to expiate the sins of the 
flesh by the scourging which he willed to endure, by his bonds and im- 
prisonment, by his crucifixion on the Mount of Calvary." 

f Vide Acts v : verses 17, 18, 21, 27-33, 40-42. 

Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) has remarked upon the wisdom 
of our Lord in selecting his disciples : "St. Peter would have appeared 
to us rash and impulsive and unreliable, but beneath his variable nature 
Jesus found the rock of devotion and stability. ' ' 

% " If I were to live to the end of the world," said St. Francis, " I 
should need no other book than the record of the Passion of Christ." 

"The Christ who is preached throughout the whole world," says 
St. Augustine, "is not Christ adorned with an earthly crown, nor 
Christ rich in earthly treasures, nor Christ illustrious for earthly pros- 
perity, but Christ crucified." 

397 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ered ? Are there not to-day many hills of gold unopened ? 
Are there not to-day many flowers in the wilderness un- 
plucked ? Are there not to-day many beneficent powers in 
nature undiscovered and unused ? And is there not to-day 
abundant virtue in the blood of Christ, enough for all the 
world ? And will the world still refuse ? 

Let me not then coolly count the five bleeding wounds 
of Christ, without some sense of guilt. A thorn in his 
crown was my sin. My sin was a nail in his cross ; my sin 
a spear in his side. 

" Seeking me, thy worn feet hasted, 
In the cross thy soul death tasted, 
Let not all these toils be wasted : 
Think, O Jesus, for what reason 
Thou endurest earth's spite and treason, — 
Nor me lose in that dread season." 

Supplemental Note : 

Relating to Our Lord's Atonement. 

IT is difficult to theorize concerning the grounds of the Scriptural doctrine 
of the Atonement as it is in regard to the Trinity. We may say of 
the Triunal name of God, that the Father stands for the creative, sover- 
eign Power, as the Moral Governor of men, the Infinite Justice ; that the 
Son sets forth the Love of God, his redemptive work ; and that the Holy 
Spirit is God in his relation to the continuous conduct of His Kingdom 
among moral beings ; and that these distinctions are eternal in their 
nature. Having said so much, it is difficult so to state the philosophy of 
the work of the Son of God, as to produce no confusion as to the nature 
of the Tri-une Being. For the most part of mankind it is better, doubt- 
less, to leave it where the Apostles do, — to state the fact without attempt- 
ing to theorize. 

" The very nature and essence of the sufferings and death of Christ 
is, that they are an expiation of sin," says Professor H. B. Smith, in 

398 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 

his Christian Theology: "We may form theories about its relations to 
moral government, or the wants of the soul, but the essence of the thing 
about which we are to form our theory is, that it was an expiation for sin. 
. . . How can the sacrifice procure the pardon of sin? What are the 
ultimate grounds? Here is where the theories of the atonement come in. 
. . . To show precisely how God construes this greatest and most far- 
reaching of transactions ... is a task we do not undertake." 

" Christ," says Henry Ward Beecher, " is God revealed in mani- 
festations suited to the weak and the wicked. That part of the divine 
character which is adapted to perfection, is the Father s ; that part which 
is adapted to imperfection is Jesus Christ. Men say they can apprehend 
the Father, but that it is difficult to apprehend Christ. That part of God 
that comes near to a fallen soul ; that expresses divine pity, love, and for- 
giveness ; that view of God which makes Him a nurse, a mother, the 
physician, and friend, is Christ, call it by what name you please." 

This book is not a treatise on theology, yet, out of the vast number 
of pertinent passages, a few may be referred to, in illustration of the 
atoning work of Jesus, as it was conceived by the Apostles : I. Peter i : 
19 ; Revelation v : 9, 12, 13 ; Romans v : 9, 10 ; II. Corinthians v : 18, 
19 ; Ephesians i : 7, and ii : 13-17 ; Hebrews ii : 17, and ix : 26, 27. 

Vide Article by Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, of New York, page 
538, in which the theory of the Atonement is alluded to. 




399 



BOOK NINE. 



.->£=H£^-. 



Our Friend on High. 



*®>#l&<sfr 



Chapter l. Page 401. 



Loving Kindness Personally 
Administered. 



Chapter 2. Page 412. 

Mystery of the Two Natures. 



Chapter 3. Page 419. 

Contrasts in the Divine Self^Sacrifice 



CHAPTER ONE. 

Loving Kindness Personally 
Administered. 




^-Jfc^ 3 * - 

HETHER or not St. Thomas intended to give 
their full import to the words, "My Lord and 
my God," it is certain that the disciples of 
Jesus and the apostolic Church interpreted the prophecy of 
Isaiah concerning the Holy Child, quite literally : that he 
should be called .the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, as 
well as the Prince of Peace ; and that Jesus, as the Messiah, 
was so far the great God as well as Saviour,* that it was 
suitable to pray to him, and to worship him, who was to be 
the omnipotent Judge of the Universe, f They reached this 
conclusion from our Lord's exposition of the Messianic 
Scriptures ; and from the affirmations made by Jesus, con- 
cerning his own relation to the Father, and to the Holy 
Spirit. In beginning the very first verse of his Gospel with 
a divine personage, rather than a babe at Bethlehem as the 
other evangelists did, the apostle John "opened his treatise 
with a peal of thunder," as St. Augustine has said. 

" So, through the thunder comes a human voice." % 

* Titus ii : 13. 

f Acts i : 24, and ix : 13, 14, 21, and xxii : 16 ; Romans x : 13 ; I. 
Cor. i : 2 ; Heb. xiii : 21 ; II. Pet. iii : 18 ; Rev. v : 12, 13, and vii : 10 ; 
Col. i : 16, 17 ; II. Tim. iv : 1 ; Romans xiv : 10 ; Acts xvii : 30, 31. 

% Robert Browning. 

[Book IX.] 401 26 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

It is the voice of God's love, the Word, the expression of 
God ; Christ being what God is, as to moral character. In 
knowing Christ, we so far forth know God ; and that, too, 
not only as an expression of God's love to man, but in some 
proper sense as God himself, limited by human conditions. 
The teaching of St. John, throughout his entire writings, 
concerning Jesus as the Life, the Love, the Light, has been 
emphasized and enlarged upon by Canon Liddon ; and he 
has fortified his position by referring to more. than a score of 
texts.* The New Testament indicates that the Incarnation, 
or God in Christ, was the leading apostolic doctrine, and 
that theological inquiry in regard to other points began 
here, f 

ONE of the most eminent of our novelists has written of 
the "Blessed influence of one true loving human soul 
on another. Not calculable by algebra, not deducible 
by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden 

*I. John iv : 8 ; John iii : 35 ; and v : 20 ; and x : 17 ; and xv : 9 ; and 
xvii : 24 ; and xiv : 23 ; and xvi : 27. I. John i : 5. John i : 7, 9 : and 
viii : 12 ; and xiv: 6. I.John ii : 8. John xiv: 31. I. John iii : 16. 
John xiv : 23 ; and xi : 25 ; and xvi : 6. I. John v : 20. John 5 : 26 ; and 
i : 3,4. I. Johni:l. 

f It has been remarked by Dean Faerar : ' < There is not one syl- 
lable in the Gospels or in the Epistles respecting the appearance of 
His form or face. Nor is there the vestige of any reference to it in the 
literature of the first two centuries. The fact itself is deeply significant. 
It is impossible that the earthly aspect of Christ should have been so 
completely forgotten if the early Christians had centered their thoughts on 
the Human Sufferer, the Man Christ Jesus, and not much more on the 
Risen, the Ascended, the Glorified, the Eternal King, God of God, Light 
of Light, Very God of Very God." 

402 



IMMANUEL. 

process by which the living seed is .quickened, and bursts 
forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled 
flower. Ideas .... pass athwart us in thin vapor, 
and cannot make themselves felt ; but sometimes they are 
made flesh, they breathe upon us with warm breath, they 
touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with 
sad, sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones, — 
they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its 
conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence is 
a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are 
drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is 
drawn to flame." 

Is it not true that when we are most conscious of our 
moral imperfections, we feel the need of an incarnation of 
the Divine Love, a Divine Friendship in some historic mani- 
festation ? It is so, even if we cannot easily analyze what 
is wrought for us by a personal friendship which enshrines 
the love of God, that cannot be wrought by love as an 
abstract idea. Self-renunciation for others as an ideal of life 
seems more practicable, when we see it in a person. Con- 
scious of faculties in which we are morally constituted like 
God, we can better develop the divine image in ourselves 
by being intimate with Divinity limited by human condi- 
tions, as in Christ, than by merely contemplating a list of 
moral attributes. "Whenever," says Bishop Huntington, 
"the soul is most deeply stirred by penitence, or strained 
by agony, or kindled into holy aspiration, the spiritual na- 
ture craves a more intimate communion with God than 
would be possible if that God had not mysteriously mani- 

403 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

f ested himself in the flesh ; not a Sovereign in the skies, but 
a beating and friendly bosom in Bethany." 

Our twofold nature is met and satisfied in its highest 
longings only by a sympathizing God, — God with us. A 
mortal immortal — a man on the earth who will soon die — 
the man who will live forever — needs for a friend, not only 
a mortal like himself and God in the skies, but he needs 
Immanuel. Man is too spiritual to be satisfied with a 
friendship that pertains to this earth alone : he is too 
carnal to be satisfied with the friendship of a mysterious 
Infinite Force, who has never actively sympathized with 
the condition of man.* Behold then your needed Friend, — 
God Himself descending. 

IK the self -revelation of God, his moral attributes are re- 
vealed to us in Christ, and in that course of history and 
of literary production which are pertinent to Christ. 
The Incarnation is not otherwise than a device of the All- 
wise God to make finite beings understand His love, and 

* " The glad tidings is not that a remarkable and unique man, named 
Jesus, lived a holy life, realized the ideal man, and died a martyr in 

Palestine eighteen hundred years ago It avails little for us 

that one man in ancient times showed in his character all the rich and 
beautiful humanities which can adorn a human life, all that can be 
worthy and admirable in man. What we need to know is that these 
beautiful humanities have their archetypes in God ; that he is touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities ; that he has come to us in the beauty 
and glory of the divine love drawing us to him to make us beautiful and 
glorious in his likeness. And this is the glad tidings of great joy, that all in 
Christ which is pure and strong in righteousness, which is tender and 
sympathizing in compassion, which is beautiful, attractive, and winning 

404 



IMMANUEL. 

lay hold upon it ; it is heaven bending to the earth, eternity 
to time, God to man. We learn to think of God as the In- 
finite, yet as a personal Friend. "We see the chasm be- 
tween the finite and the Infinite bridged over by a member 
of our human race " * 

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He who 
displays His glory in flowers on drear mountain sides, or 
in the coral groves which grow beneath the salt sea waves, 
has thought it not detracting from the dignity of His nature 
to appear upon the earth, being made like unto those men 
whom He would fain call brethren, that He may save them 
from their sins. Forasmuch then, it is written, as the chil- 
dren are flesh and blood, He — the Father through his Son 
— also himself likewise took part of the same. The greater 
part of mankind are poor and ignorant, and all are spiritu- 
ally poor and spiritually ignorant ; and they cannot grasp 
the Divine friendship as a practical thing unless that friend- 
ship take the form of flesh and blood. We have, not so 
much a system of truth to be believed, as a Person to be 
loved ; and the truths are those which center in Him, which 
lead us to Him, and which make us try to bring all the 
world to Him. 



in love, is the revelation of God Himself as he comes to seek and save the 
lost." — Professor Samuel Harris, late of Yale University, in his work 
upon God, the Creator and Lord of all. 

* Frederick Godet. 

John Calvin expressed the same thought, affirming that even if man 
had not fallen, yet he could never have been united to God, so much above 
him, without a mediator.. 

405 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

" CVERY revelation of God," says Dr. Samuel Harris, 
1 " must necessarily be a hiding of him ; the only 

way in which it is possible for God to manifest 
himself is in circumscribing himself." Clearly this is so in 
the material creation, — a singular limitation of Himself, if 
it were to be thought that this were all. Yet the First 
Cause is far more than a Chemist and a Mechanic. If the 
Infinite will reveal himself to the finite mind of man — so 
ignorant and low-conditioned, — it must be done by a finite 
manifestation of His own mental and moral qualities in 
circumstances that finite minds can apprehend. We can- 
not know Infinite Perfection, but we can know what is 
perfect within our sphere of human life. "The Incarna- 
tion," says Drummond, "is God making himself accessible 
to human thought." * 

This point is well presented in two paragraphs from 
Canon Liddon : — 

" God willed in his condescending mercy to place him- 
self within the reach of his creatures ; he willed to give a 
palpable proof of the saying that ' His delights were with 
the sons of men.' He, the Immaterial, became related inti- 
mately and visibly to a material body ; he, the Infinite, con- 
descended to take upon him a finite form ; he, the Creator, 
entered into indissoluble alliance with the nature which 
was the work of his hands ; and thus St. John writes in 

* < ' The perfecting of the self -revelation of God is nothing other than 
the Incarnation of God." — Dorner. 

The anthropological representations of God in the Old Testament 
accord with the Incarnation in the New. 

406 



IMMANUEL. 

ecstasy of ' that which was from the beginning, that which 
we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that 
which we beheld and our hands handled, of the Word of 
Life ; for the life was manifested, and we have seen, and 
bear witness, and declare unto you that eternal life, which 
was with the Father, and was manifested unto us ; that 
which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you/* 
And thus the remote, inaccessible God was really within 
reach. ' The Word was made flesh ; ' he was seen and 
handled ; he was laid in the manger of Bethlehem." 

" Instead of presenting us with some fugitive abstraction 
inaccessible to the intellect and disappointing to the heart, 
the Incarnation points to Jesus. Jesus is the Almighty, 
restraining his illimitable powers ; Jesus is the Incompre- 
hensible, voluntarily submitting to bonds ; Jesus is Provi- 
dence, clothed in our own flesh and blood ; Jesus is the 
Infinite Christ, tending us with the kindly looks and tender 
handling of a human love ; Jesus is the Eternal Wisdom, 
speaking out of the depths of infinite thought in a human 
language ; Jesus is God making himself, if I may dare so 
to speak, our tangible possession ; He is God brought very 
nigh to us, in our mouth, and in our heart : we behold him, 
we touch him, we cling to him, — and, lo, we are partakers 
of the nature of Deity through our actual membership of 
his body,f — in his flesh, and in his bones : and we dwell, if 
we will, evermore in him, and he in us." 

Principal Caird has said in view of this self -revelation 

* I. John i : 1. f IL Pet - i : 4 - E P h - v : 30. 

-107 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

of God in Christ : " No longer need the soul wander forth 
through eternal solitudes, vainly longing amid the vastness 
and the grandeur for the sound of some familiar voice to 
break the stillness, or the sight of some sheltered spot in 
which it may nestle with a sense of friendliness and se- 
curity. No longer in our hidden joys and griefs, in our 
gratitude and contrition, in our love and sorrow, when the 
full heart longs for a heavenly confidant to whom, as to no 
earthly friend, it may lay bare its want, — no longer need 
we feel that God is too awful a being to obtrude upon him 
our insignificance or to offer him our human tenderness or 
human tears. i .Come unto me,' is the invitation of the 
Blessed One, so intensely human though so gloriously di- 
vine ; ' Unto me/ in whose arms little children were em- 
braced, on whose bosom a frail mortal lay ; 'Unto me,' who 
hungered, thirsted, fainted, sorrowed, wept, and yet whose 
love and grief and pain and tears do but express emo- 
tions which are felt in the heart of the Infinite God. ' Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest.' " 

IN the self-revelation of God in Christ, the Saviour is 
spoken of as the image of the invisible God. " By him," 
says Clement of Rome, "we look up to the heights of 
heaven ; by him we behold, as in a glass, the immaculate 
and most excellent visage." "The unrepresented One per- 
fectly represents himself, the imageless One takes an exact 
image of himself in the Incarnation. The unapproachable 
light of the Infinite One passing through the softening 

408 



IMMANUEL. 

medium of our humanity, becomes bearable to human 
eyes. While we accord him the reverence and adoration 
which belongs to God, we have in him a tangible, material, 
tender friend and Redeemer ; one we can actually ap- 
proach, clearly know, understandingly trust and love." * 
No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed 
him. f 

It is this popularization of the idea of God, — the God 
who loves man and is lovable by man, and who commands 
men to love him and to love each other, as the sum of reli- 
gious duty, — which has changed the face of the world since 
the era of the Incarnation. + It is this which led Lord 
Macaulay to say, that " God the uncreated, the incompre- 
hensible, the invisible, attracted few worshipers. . . . 
It was before the Deity, embodied in a human form, walk- 
ing among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning 
on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in 
the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of 
the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the 
pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the 
swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust." 

*The Rev. W. T. Chase, D.D., in The Watchman. 

f John i : 18. "The divine justice, and mercy, and goodness, and 
compassion, and truth, all the elements of holiness, all the qualities 
which constitute moral perfection, are revealed to us in him, as they were 
never revealed before." — R. W. Dale, D D. 

% " It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of na- 
ture, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the 
modern mind." — John Stuart Mill. 

409 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

THE Incarnation involves a purpose on the part of God, 
to reveal his moral attributes to man in a Unique Per- 
sonality — "the God-man/' or, more happily, "God in 
Christ," and in Scriptures that pertain to him ; as truly so, 
as he purposed to reveal other attributes in the material 
creation. This has been admirably set forth by President 
Francis L. Patton of Princeton University.* 

The Incarnation is not to be thought of so much as a 
theological tenet, as the unique expression of God's love to 
mankind, for the purpose of developing their spiritual facul- 
ties, so that those who are made a little lower than the 
angels may become partakers of a divine life. The Old 
Testament sets forth this yearning of a Father's heart. 
And Jesus, who said, "the Father himself loveth you," 
is "the perfect representation of the Father's character, 
of the Father's compassion for sinners, of his love for the 
penitent and believing, of his patience, sympathy, and 
eternal faithfulness in all his promises, f 

Salvation from sin is made possible through the atone- 
ment provided ; yet we are practically led to rely upon 
Christ's atonement and to work out our own salvation in 
connection with the intimate friendship we personally form 
with Christ. By his love to us and our love to him, we are 



* See page 601. 

f Compare comments upon John xiv : 8, by Professor Henry 
Cowles, of Oberlin. 

410 



IMMANUEL. 

led to renounce a selfish life ; and to make God's will — an 
unselfish love toward God and toward man — the supreme 
choice of the soul. So it is that he saves his people from 
their sins. 

Loving-kindness, personally administered, is the hinge 
of the door between God and man, — and it is God who 
turns the hinge ; it is for man to walk through the open 
door. If a man, like a penitent and pardoned criminal, 
hesitates, he may know that the Moral Governor is his 
Friend, and that he has made perfect provision for the 
pardon of the penitent. It is actionable under human law 
if a pardoned man is reproached for a crime that is for- 
given ; and if a sinner attempts to lead a new life, the 
Divine Friend stands by the penitent. This warm sympathy 
between God and man is the means of spiritual salvation. 
It is wrought through love, as the common factor ; and on 
God's part, the Incarnation is the manifestation of this self- 
sacrificing love. By it the Father and his erring children 
are brought together : God's care and helpfulness ; man's 
love and obedience. 

Now this is the kind of friendship the world needs : In- 
finite, Divine, yet thoroughly human ; a reconciling friend- 
ship, the love of God so appearing that it can be taken hold 
of by sinners, — so that they may thereby become sons and 
daughters of the Almighty. 



411 



CHAPTER TWO. 

Mystery of the Two Natures, 




1TH0UT trenching upon the domain of a dog- 
matic treatise, it is suitable, in the interests of 
devotion, to make certain memoranda in re- 
gard to the mysterious personality of him who united in 
himself the human and the Divine. 



^f TOW can these things be ? We do not know. Nor need 
l\ we attempt to solve it, until we first solve other prob- 
lems that are as mysterious : What is matter ? 
What is gravitation ? What is the life principle in a grain 
of growing corn ? Until these questions are answered, we 
will accept the facts : — the growth of corn, — the existence 
of gravitation, of matter, and of the Incarnation. 

We pass through life with many problems unsolved, and 
even if we share the exultant hope of the dying Melanch- 
thon, "Now, I shall know the mystery of the two natures," 
yet Jesus has said, " No man knoweth the Son, but the 
Father," and it is part of an old Hebrew song, "Thou art 
a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." 
^book ix.] 412 



THE TWO NATURES. 

t^OR the purpose of illustration, the Incarnation may be, 
|* in mode, conceived of as the omnipresence of God 
manifest in Christ so far as this : that while Jesus was, in 
the language of the Nicene symbol, Very God of Very God, 
yet there was in no sense a vacating of the throne of the 
universe, or any intermitting of the reign of the Highest.* 

God. in Christ. 

WE are not to say that there were two souls, a God-soul 
and a man-soul, — not to say there were two personali- 
ties in one body ; but two distinct natures, God's nature 
and man's nature, mysteriously united without confusion 
or mixture in one person, and losing by the union no 
attribute of either nature, — forming a unique being who 
may be most suitably called the God-man, or God in Christ. 
Jesus Christ was the God-man : that is, God was in Christ 
acting under the limitations of proper humanity. 

To use the illustration of Lessius : — " Fire pierceth 
through all the parts of iron, — it unites itself with every 
particle, bestows a light, heat, purity, upon all of it ; you 
cannot distinguish the iron from the fire, or the fire from 
the iron, yet they are distinct natures ; so the Deity is 
united to the whole humanity, seasons it, yet the natures 
still remain distinct. And as during the union of fire with 

*It is quaintly said by St. Augustine, « When Christ came forth 
from the Father, he so came into the world as not to leave the Father ; 
and he so left the world and went unto the Father as never to leave the 
world." 

413 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

iron, the iron is incapable of rust or blackness, so is the 
humanity incapable of sin : and as the operation of fire is 
attributed to the red hot iron (as the iron may be said to 
heat, burn, and the fire may be said to cut and pierce), yet 
the imperfections of the iron do not affect the fire ; so in 
this mystery, those things which belong to the Divinity are 
ascribed to the humanity, and those things which belong 
to the humanity are ascribed to the Divinity, in regard of 
the person in whom those natures are united." 

The Highest Style of Man. 

JESUS acted as the highest style of man would act, 
thought as he would think, and yet was lifted above 
his condition by virtue of his own Divinity, which 
operated in a manner analogous to the action of the Holy 
Spirit on prophets and good men in all ages. 

This is the meaning of the prophecy, that "the Spirit of 
the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and un- 
derstanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of 
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord " ; and also of the 
assertions of John the Baptist, that " God giveth not the 
Spirit by measure unto him " ; and also the saying of 
the Evangelist, that "the grace of God was upon him."* 

* I find in Professor Edwards A. Park's Discourses, references to 
three classes of texts : — 

I. The relation of the Divine nature to the human. John i : 1-18 ; 
and iii : 11, 13. Hebrews i : 2-4 ; and ii : 1-4. John iii : 34 ; and vii : 16-18 ; 
and viii : 26-29 ; and xii : 44-50 ; and xiv : 10, 24 ; and xviii : 8. 

II. The influence of the Spirit, or the Divinity, upon the God-man. 

414 



THE TWO NATURES. 

The Divine ISTa.tu.re. 

THE Divine Nature of our Lord was so apprehended by 
him that he could say, "Before Abraham was, I 
am " ; and allude to his own former glory in the heavenly 
state, as a matter familiar to him.* And sometimes his 
manner awed men into standing apart for the time ; and 
his life work as a whole was as solitary as if he had come 
from some distant star, to touch for a moment upon this 
planet, to set into motion certain divine plans which no dis- 
ciple could then understand and which have not yet been 
perfectly comprehended as they have unfolded age after 
age. He it was " who being the holiest among the mighty, 
and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with his pierced 
hand empires off their hinges, turned the stream of the cen- 
turies out of its channel, and who still governs the ages." f 
Day by day he lived with no uncertain sense that this would 
be so ; and that the ages would honor the Son even as they 
honor the Father. "By Thee," says Saint Anselm, "the 



Col. i : 19 ; and ii : 9. Luke iv : 1, 14. John i : 32. Luke ii : 40. Isa. 
xi : 1-4 ; and xliii : 1-4. 

III. The relation of the Holy Spirit to Jesus. Matt, iv: 1. Luke 
iv : 1, 14. Isa. lxi : 1. John i : 1, 32, 33 ; and vi : 27. Acts i : 8 ; and 
vi : 5-8 ; and x : 38. Rom. viii : 14. Phil, ii : 7. Col. ii : 9. II. Cor. 
i: 21, 22. I. John ii: 27. 

* " He speaks of saving and judging the world, of drawing all men 
to himself, and of giving everlasting life, as we speak of the ordinary 
powers which we exert. ' ' — William Ellery Channing. 
|Jean Paul Richter. 

415 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Seraphim burn, by Thee the Cherubim shine, by Thee the 
Thrones judge." 

ThLorotaghLly Human. 
<f JE was, too, so thoroughly human, that in early life 
l\ he learned for himself those virtues which mean so 
much to us in our low estate, — and which, we think 
with pride, may be of use to us in the world to which we 
hasten, — such virtues as Temperance, Contentment, Can- 
dor, Courage, Gratitude, Prudence, Fortitude, Economy ; 
and Jesus as child, a youth, a young man, was content to 
grow, — developing his faculties, and his consciousness of his 
Messiahship, a little at a time ; and there was also a limita- 
tion of his knowledge, — many things being known to the 
Father only.* Welcome indeed must it have been to his 
Divine Nature to be brought into sympathy with a well 
proportioned human life, — whether to weep in the house of 
sorrow, to appear as a happy wedding guest, or to be re- 
proached for feasting. He who instructed men in the most 
profound religious teachings, also taught Peter where to 
catch fish. And he kindled a fire, and laid fish thereon, and 
said to his disciples, "Come, and dine." Has it not been an 
unspeakable boon to the Church universal, that the human 
side of the life of Christ has been given more prominence 
in recent generations, and that the modern disciples have 
insisted upon the imitation of the human virtues of the man 
Christ Jesus ? 

* This sentence is suggested by Bushxell's Sermon on " Our advan- 
tages in being finite. " 

416 



THE TWO NATURES. 

The Son. of Man. 

WITH all his consciousness of a Nature Divine, Jesus 
delighted to call himself "the Son of Man/' the term 
used by the prophet Daniel. In John's Gospel, our Lord 
calls himself upon four occasions,* the Son of God ; a term 
not unknown to the Jewish books, f And there are thirteen 
other passages in which Jesus speaks of himself as the Son 
of God, without using the precise phrase. The three earlier 
Evangelists all agree that Jesus acknowledged himself as 
the Son of God, in reply to the question of Caiaphas, at his 
trial. 

Yet the term Son of Man, Jesus applies to himself eighty- 
one times in the Gospels ; there being sometimes a dupli- 
cate record. The Divinity of our Lord thus put honor upon 
his humanity. The Divine Nature was united to man, to 
human nature ; Jesus was the Son of Man, rather than a 
son of Abraham. The heroes of the earth have been Jewish, 
Greek, Roman, Anglo-Saxon ; but Christ belonged to all 
the race, — standing related to the whole human family, in 
all the ages of its history. Jesus was pre-eminently the Son 
of Man, in the sense that in his character we find the essen- 
tial elements of humanity in their perfection, and he stood 
as a Man ; and we may use the words of Robertson that in 
Christ " all the blood of all the nations ran." 



*Johniii: 18; and ix : 35,37; and x : 36; and xi : 4. 
f Enoch cv : 2. IV. Esdras xiii : 32 ; and xiv : 9. 

417 27 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

So impressed were the disciples with this favorite phrase 
of their Master, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke use the 
term " Son of Man " altogether, in citing the words of Jesus, 
— although they in no wise omit his claim to the Divine 
Sonship, as expressed in other phrases, and emphasized be- 
fore Caiaphas. To them, Jesus was first of all a man ; nor 
did his Divine Sonship appear to them with overwhelming 
evidence until he had risen from the dead. " In the Being, 
so simple, lowly ; in that most gentle Companion, that kind, 
ever accessible Friend ; who wandered by their sides in the 
same daily journeys, and retired at night to the same 
slumbers of exhausted nature ; who looked like themselves, 
was hungry and weary like themselves, wore the same 
raiment, partook of the same meals : in that intensely real 
human nature, how almost impossible for them to realize 
what a transcendent presence was ever near them. Death 
must dissolve the illusion of familiarity, and gather around 
the Man of Nazareth the mystery and awe of the world un- 
seen, before they could rise to the apprehension of his 
awful greatness, and see in him at once the Son of Man and 
Son of God." * ______ 

*The Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, D.C.L. 




■*|tf" 



418 



CHAPTER THREE. 

Contrasts in trie Divine 
Self-Sacrifice. 



<^<s>^ 



IT was said that no man hath seen God at any time ; 
yet the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of 
the Father, he hath declared him. The glory which 
Christ had with the Father before the world was, he 
laid aside for his subordinate mediatorial service. The 
scriptural contrasts in the story of the God-man relate to his 
proper Divine Nature, and the experiences incident to the 
earthly mission of our Lord. They illustrate the Divine 
love as it is manifested in Jesus Christ, in whom the Divine 
Will and the Divine Power so abode, that he constantly 
represented himself as one with the Father, and so eternally 
related to the First Cause of all things in essential life as 
rightfully to apply to himself the Divine name, and claim 
for himself the honor due to God. 

He who in his low estate was ignorant of many things 
relating to the future of the Jews, claimed to represent the 
wisdom of God and to be the searcher of hearts. He who 
made himself of no reputation, but took upon himself the 

[Book IX.] 419 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, 
was yet in the form of God, and claimed to be his equal ; 
and he said to those around him, "Ye are from beneath, 
I am from above : I came forth from the Father." 



vfJAD it not been asked of old time, "Will God indeed 
* V_ dwell on the earth ? Behold the heaven and heaven 
of heavens cannot contain Thee." Yet he who said, "I 
am the beginning and the end, the first and the last," took 
to himself the name, " Immanuel " ; and in him the An- 
cient of Days became an infant of days. Is it possible in 
the words of an old English preacher, "to contract divinity 
to a span " ? * Yet he that built the heavens was now, as 
the most lowly human child, born in a barn. 

' < Firmitudo infirmatur ; 
Parva fit immensitas, 
Laboratur, alligatur ; 
Nascitur aeternitas." f 

That is : Eternity is born ; Immeasurableness becomes 
small, and suffers, and is bound ; and Strength becomes 
weakness. 

He of whom it was written that the government shall be 
upon his shoulder, the Counsellor, the Prince of Peace, was 
also said to be born a child, — Unto us a Son is given. He, 



* Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 
| Christmas Carol, Luther. 

420 



CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. 

of whom it is written that he stretcheth out the heavens 
like a curtain, that he layeth the beams of his chambers in 
the waters, was now content as any child of humanity, with 
a roof for housing wayfarers, man, and beast. The Desire 
of all nations appeared in one of the cattle caves of Beth- 
lehem. He who covereth himself with light as with a 
garment, the Saviour, Christ the Lord, was wrapped in 
swaddling bands. "Ye shall find a babe,"- it was said: 
"He whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
lasting." He that sent forth stars, as seed from the hand 
of a sower, now like a babe of every day stretched out a 
tiny hand asking pity. But that babe arose from the man- 
ger, and declared, Before Abraham was, I am : Look 
unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I 
am God, and there is none else. 

He who was called the Power of God, was said to be sub- 
ject to Joseph and Mary at Nazareth ; and he who was called 
the Wisdom of God, was said as an earthly child to increase 
in wisdom, — and he sought wisdom from earthly rabbis. 

He who made the sea and the mountains and all the 
glittering worlds that hang on high, who made all things, 
neither without him was anything made that was made, he 
who was appointed of God the heir of all things, now, as a 
Nazarene Carpenter, took hold on the tools of a mechanic, 
and handled the hammer and the plane, and men were 
offended in him. Yet we hear the voice of the unpretend- 
ing Jesus saying, Behold a greater than Solomon is here. 
And the obscure Nazarene cried with a loud voice, so that 
all men might hear him, "I am the Light of the world." 

421 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

If I were hungry, quoth the Hebrew song, I would not 
tell thee : yet it is recorded in the Gospel story, that the 
hunger of Immanuel was known even to the great adver- 
sary. God cannot be tempted of evil ; yet our Lord was 
tempted in all points as we are. 



\1TE to whom we make our prayers was himself often all 
* V_ night praying, and, adds the commentator,* as he 
was going to the mountains to pray, " The sparrow, not 
knowing its Creator and Protector, flew away from his 
coming. His form cast its shadow, as he passed, over bush, 
and flower, and grass, and they knew not that their Maker 
overshadowed them." 

The High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is Holy, that dwelleth in the high and holy place, said 
to his disciples, "I am meek and lowly in heart." He 
who built the many mansions of his Father's house, and 
who prepares a place for every one of his people, had not 
himself a place to lay his head. What house will ye build 
me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of my Test ; heaven 
is my throne, and earth is my footstool : hath not my hands 
made all these things ? Yet men turned the Son of God out 
of their villages at nightfall, as an outcast. The Lord of 
all the worlds has walked this globe ; and while his weary 
feet moved through dusty Galilee, unseen angels bowed 
before him, 

* Henry Ward Beeciier. 

422 



CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. 

He who walked the waves of the sea, was fain to hide 
himself near the shores of the sea, that he might rest from 
the importunities of the thronging multitude. He who 
quieted the storm on the lake, was just before asleep 
through weariness. 

The Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth not, 
neither is weary, who giveth power to the faint, was said 
to be weary with his journey, and to sit in repose at a well- 
side. He who meted out heaven with a span and measured 
the waters in the hollow of his hand, he who had made the 
rivers and the fountains, saith to a woman of Samaria, 
" Give me to drink." And he who was athirst, now be- 
stowed the living water. 

He who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who 
dwelleth in the high and holy place, was said also, in tab- 
ernacling with men, to receive sinners, and to eat with 
them. 

Who hath first given to God ? asks the Apostle. Yet it 
was said by St. Luke, that when he who was called " God 
with us " went preaching the glad tidings of the Kingdom, 
many persons ministered unto him of their substance. 

Concerning the Ancient of Days it was said, that thou- 
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand 
times ten thousand stood before him ; yet, on the earth, as 
the Son of Man, he came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and he was among men as he that serveth. He 
who knew that the Father had given all things into his 
hands, laid aside his garments ; and he who knew that he 
was come from God, and that he went to God, washed the 

423 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

feet of his disciples, and wiped them with the towel where- 
with he was girded. 

He who commands the princes of heaven, now gathers 
the outcasts of Israel. He who counts the numbers with- 
out number of the hosts of heaven, now carefully enumer- 
ates the hairs of our heads ; and cares for things minute, 
which are of moment to his disciples. 

It was said in Exodus, when the Lord came to Sinai : 
Set bounds unto the people round about : take heed ; go not 
up into the mount, or touch the border of it : whosoever 
toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death ; there 
shall not a hand -touch it. Yet it was said in the Gospel 
story, that a woman which was a sinner, stood at the feet 
of Immanuel, weeping, and washing his feet with tears, 
and wiping them with the hairs of her head. Severe as 
justice, he was yet gentle as a woman, and one disciple 
dared lean his head on the bosom of the Incarnate Jehovah. 



IN the words of the old Hebrew song, " The earth is the 
Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that 
dwell therein : but when he came unto his own, his 
own received him not. Although the world was made by 
him, yet when he was in the world, the world knew him 
not. 

"Who is this, asked the prophet, that cometh from Edom, 
with dyed garments, glorious in his apparel ? It was he, 
who became a proverb in the mouth of the Pharisees and 
Sadducees, and who made sackcloth his garment. Isaiah, 

424 



CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. 

who is called the evangelistic prophet, saw in vision the 
worship of the seraphims, who cried one unto another, 
and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ; the whole 
earth is full of his glory. Yet John the Evangelist has 
written that the Jews said, concerning the Representative 
of the Highest, that he hath a devil. 

God had said, " This is my beloved Son : hear ye him." 
And Jesus said, " Thou lovedst me before the foundation 
of the world; then, concerning the Jews, he said, "They 
hated me without a cause." 

Was there not a prophetic vision, of a certain man 
whose loins were girded with fine gold, and his body, his 
face, his eyes, his arms, his feet, brilliant with light and 
precious stones and gleaming metal ? Yet there was 
another vision, showing that men would despise him who 
was the chiefest among ten thousand, as a root out of dry 
ground, without form or comeliness or beauty that any 
should desire him. 

" Thou hast made him blessed forever," sang the 
Psalmist : yet the Lord was rejected of men, and they 
esteemed him not. " Thou hast made him exceeding glad 
with thy countenance," sang the Psalmist : yet men hid 
their faces from God's Anointed. 

"I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him," 
•said he who was the personification of the Divine Wisdom : 
yet in Judea and Galilee, the Teacher of the world was but 
a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief. 



425 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

THE infinite pathos of the Divine self-renunciation appears 
in the later story of our Saviour's life. Did not John 
the Revelator see one sitting upon a great white throne, 
before whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ? 
Yet it is recorded that the face of our Lord was once so 
agonized, that great drops of blood fell down to the ground. 
He who had been called the Strength of Israel, needed at 
Gethsemane an angel from heaven to strengthen him. 

Before the day was, I am he ; and there is none, saith 
the Lord of Israel, who can deliver out of my hand ; yet, in 
the night, was the Lord of Israel delivered into the hands 
of men. He that doeth according to his will in the army 
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that 
none can stay his hand, was now taken by a band of Roman 
soldiers, and bound as a captive. 

He whom God had highly exalted, and given a name 
above every name, was confronted by false witnesses, to 
put him to death. It had been written of old, " Grace is 
poured into thy lips ; therefore God hath blessed thee for- 
ever : " yet he was accused by the high priest, of speaking 
blasphemy. Then the Judge of the universe was haled as 
a prisoner before Pilate's bar ; and for him whom God had 
crowned with glory and honor, they platted a crown of 
thorns, and put it on his head. 

The darkness, it is said, hideth not from Thee, but the 
night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light are 
both alike to thee : so runs the old Hebrew song. Yet, con- 
cerning Immanuel, it was written, that when they had 

426 



CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. 

blindfolded him, they struck him in the face, and asked 
him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee ? as if he 
saw them not. 

Concerning our Lord it was written, that as all things 
were created by him, so all were created for him, — all 
things that are in heaven, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers. 
Yet concerning our Lord it is also written, that they stripped 
him, and put on him a scarlet robe ; and put a reed in his 
right hand ; and mocked him ; and they spit upon him ; 
and they led him away to crucify him. 

He who had said, " I am the Way," now weakly faltered 
on the way to Calvary : and he who had said, "I am the 
Life," was soon dead. Despairing men fled from the pres- 
ence of him, who is called the Alpha and the Omega, when 
he died ; and weeping women gathered round the tomb of 
him who is the First and the Last.* 



* I can but add a paragraph of contrasting phrases by Dr. R. S. Storrs, 
in his introduction to Eddy's Immanuel : — 

" In his meekness and his majesty, in his patience and his power, 
tempted yet triumphant, insulted yet serene, scoffed at by men but wor- 
shiped by angels, with the world at his disposal, yet making himself the 
poorest in it, submitting to the crown of thorns the head which wore many 
diadems, allowing the nails to be driven through the hands whose touch 
had before unloosed for others the bars of death, — so comes before the 
illumined thoughts this Son of the Eternal ; this Prince and King of the 
kings of the earth." 



427 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

f\ THE height and depth of this super-celestial mys- 
\J , tery, that the infinite Deity and finite flesh should 
meet in one subject, yet so as the humanity should 
not be absorbed of the Godhead, nor the Godhead con- 
tracted by the humanity, but both inseparably united : that 
the Godhead is not humanized, the humanity not deified, 
both are indivisibly conjoined ; yet so conjoined as to be 
without confusion distinguished."* 

Let us, therefore, day by day, join in the praises of 
Jesus, — using the language of Milton, — 

" Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss 
Equal to God, and equally enjoying 
God-like fruition, quitted all to save 
A world from utter loss ; and hast been found 
By merit more than birthright Son of God." 

God with us, "Immanuel": This precious name we 
will write upon the walls of our closets ; and we will in- 
scribe it on our household furniture ; and we will wear it 
on our garments, bearing it as the precious talisman, at 
noonday or morning or evening or midnight, in childhood 
and in old age, — " Immanuel, God with us," our life's motto 
till we ourselves abide with God. 

Trie Victor's Crown. 

Lift up, lift up the golden gate ; 
The Christ is here in regal state, — 
Triumphal crown for Him doth wait : 
Hallelujah. 

* Bishop Joseph Hall. 

428 



CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. 

All kings lie low beneath His feet, — 
All courtiers hasten Him to meet ; 
All hosts prepare His glorious seat : 
Hallelujah. 

All earthly knees before Him bow, — 
All earthly lips to Him make vow ; — ■ 
All place the crown upon His brow : 
Hallelujah. 




429 



BOOK TEN. 



-<S3-*-:=5*- 



The Wonderful Name 



*$&> ■&$?§&<$&- 



Chapter 1. Page 431. 

The Scriptural Symbols of Christ 

Chapter 2. Page 435. 

His Name Reflected, in Nature. 

Chapter 3. Page 438. 

Emblems in Human Life. 

Chapter 4. Page 443. 

The Mystical Union. 

Chapter 5. Page 448. 

Alpha and Omega. 

Chapter 6. Page 452. 

The Royal Diadem.. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

Scriptt-iral Symbols of Christ, 



-&& — ^X^ — •£©•- 



7 _^ERTAIN heretics in the early church had a beauti- 
■ Vr^ ful tradition that a cross of Light appeared in 

^^~]s place of the body of Christ in the tomb after 

his resurrection, and that a divine voice full 
of sweetness issued from the cross, saying, " The cross 
of Light is, for your sakes, called sometimes the Word, 
sometimes Christ, sometimes the Door, sometimes the Way, 
sometimes the Bread, sometimes the Sun, sometimes the 
Eesurrection, sometimes Jesus, sometimes the Father, 
sometimes the Spirit, sometimes the Life, sometimes the 
Truth, sometimes Faith, and sometimes Grace." 

Let us, for the hour, gaze on the cross of Light, and 
listen to the heavenly voice which recites the Wonderful 
Names of Jesus. And we are to remember that the Old 
and the New Testaments are one in revealing God the 
Redeemer • so that we may suitably give to Christ many 
terms which are applied to " The Lord," as he is called in 
the Old Testament. 

[Book X.] 43 \ 



OUR ELDER BROTHER, 

eTSIDER the relation in which Christ stands to God in 
the work of Redemption. 

The name of Christ is spoken of as the ineffable name of 
the Lord. This is the name above every name, a tower 
into which the righteous may run, the name through which 
we are saved : God with us ; Messiah, the Gift of God, — 
he is the perfect gift. He is God's Anointed, anointed with 
the oil of gladness above his fellows. Christ is the elect of 
God, in whom my soul delighteth. He is represented as the 
Angel of the Covenant, a Messenger from God to men. He 
is the Righteous Servant, among you as one that serveth, of 
no reputation. 

Christ is the Lamb of God, the Lamb that was slain, 
Innocence atoning for guilt, the High God our Redeemer, 
redeeming from the curse of the Law, — himself made, 
as it is said, a curse for us. He is the Mediator ; he 
is the Saviour, saving to the uttermost. He is Priest, 
abiding continually. He is Prophet, declaring the mind 
of God. 

He is King, and King of kings ; a Shepherd King ; a 
King with a reed for a scepter, and thorns for a crown, and 
a cross for a throne ; reigning and prospering till all the 
kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord. 
Jehovah is our King, 

Christ is revealed as the Arm of the Lord. All things 
were created by him, as for him. By the work of his fingers 
the heavens were made. His fingers touch the mountains 
and they smoke. The Arm of the Lord reaches into the 

432 



THE SCRIPTURAL SYMBOLS OF CHRIST. 

depths to rescue His chosen. That Arm upholds the faint. 
That Arm is stretched on the cross, offering mercy. That 
Arm is uplifted to crush foes. It is written, Awake, Arm 
of the Lord, and put on thy strength. If I speak of strength, 
lo, he is strong. 

He is represented as the Almighty, which is, and which 
was, and which is to come. Behold, I have given him 
for a leader and commander to the people. He is the 
Captain of our salvation. He stands for an Ensign of 
the people. And he, too, is set forth as the Lion of the 
tribe of Judah. 

It is in respect to these regal and military qualities, that 
he is also called the Lord of glory, the King of glory, in 
whom God makes all His glory to pass before us. 



*7T.GAIN let us consider the relation in which Christ stands 
l\ to man. 

He is not only the Head over all things to his 
Church, and the Desire of all Nations, but as the Second 
Adam he is the only real beginning of complete manhood 
on the earth.* The first Adam failed of fulfilling the ideal 
image of God ; and although men may develop many hu- 
man faculties none will be perfected till they become new 
creatures in Christ Jesus. God has therefore set forth 
Christ as symbolized by various things in nature, and in the 
different employments of men, and in the things men use ; 

* It was a remark of St. Augustine that the whole history of the 
world revolves around the first Adam and the Second. 

433 28 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

and as the peculiar Friend of man ; and as related to man 
in delivering from the power of sin ; and as standing near 
at death and the judgment. Christ is thus represented as 
in every way satisfying human wants : and all this variety 
of imagery is used only the better to express the Infinite 
Love of God to man, as it appears in the man Christ 
Jesus. 




434 




CHAPTER TWO. 

His Name Reflected in Nature. 

EAR then the Wonderful Name of Jesus, as it is 
uttered by the voice of Nature. 

Do we gaze on rocks, or rivers, or growing 
"^-"^ things, or raise our eyes to the sweet light of 
morning, — we are always reading the choice names of our 
Saviour. Christ is called the Rock ; a tried stone, a 
precious corner stone, a sure foundation ; more unchange- 
able than the everlasting hills and stronger than they. He 
is the Rock of Refuge, a hiding place from the storm. 

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee." 

Christ is represented as the River of God, with which the 
earth is visited, watered and greatly enriched ; a River 
opened in a high place, that causes fountains to spring in 
the midst of the valleys, that makes the wilderness a pool. 
Christ is the true Wellspring from on High ; it is of un- 
measured depth, forever flowing. Ho, every one that 
thirsteth, come ye to the waters. My soul thirsteth after 
God, the living God. Go to drink at other waters ; they 
are stagnant. Go to wash in other streams ; they do not 
[Book X.] 435 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

cleanse the soul. But the voice of Jesus is heard, "I will 
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." 

Again, the Lily of the Valley, the Rose, the Pearl, and 
all things beautiful lend their names to Christ. Let the 
Rose of Sharon adorn your houses : wear that Rose next 
your breast. 

Again, behold, there appears the Branch of the Lord, 
beautiful and glorious. 

Again, Christ is a Vine, rejected by some as if with un- 
comely root out of dry ground, yet a Vine climbing over a 
Cross, a Vine extending his branches far over the huts of 
the poor and the gardens of the wealthy, a Vine shading 
and feeding. Are we branches of that Vine, having life of 
his life, and no life separated from him, having the same 
spiritual affections and aspirations and purposes with the 
Son of God ; living in him, crucified with him, dying with 
him, buried with him, quickened with him, and rising with 
him ; complete only in Christ ?• 

Again, when we gaze on Christ, we behold him dawn- 
ing upon us as the Sun of Righteousness, the Light of 
the World, a Light to lighten the Gentiles, the true Light 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.* 
God said, Let there be light, and Christ was the Light 
breaking in upon moral darkness ; the source of all move- 
ment and all power, under which graces may bloom and 



*" What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. Pie is 
the sun of my soul." — Lord Tennyson: as reported by a friend with 
whom the poet walked in his garden. 

436 



EMBLEMS IN NATURE. 

virtues grow. He who commanded the light to shine out 
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts by the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy 
God thy glory. When will that Dayspring appear ? When 
will that Morning Star ascend the heavens ? 

When night doth round me close, 
Ere eyelids seek repose — 

I look to Thee afar : 
When morning rises fair, 
To Thee I lift my prayer, — 

To Thee, my Morning Star. 




437 




CHAPTER THREE. 

Emblems in Human Life. 

^s>-^-^> 

E behold Christ as a man among men ; figured as 
taking part in our common avocations. 

To the nomads of the East he appears as the 
Shepherd, leading to good and fat pastures upon the moun- 
tains of Israel ; Christ unwearied in gently bringing home 
wanderers. He it is who leaves the ninety and nine, — in 
the heat of the day or during the chill of the night, — to 
search for the lost. He shall gather the lambs with his 
arms, and carry them in his bosom.* 

' ' Yet none of the ransomed ever knew 

How deep were the waters crossed ; 
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, 

Ere he found his sheep that was lost. 
Out in the desert he heard its cry, — 
Sick and helpless and ready to die." 

The lamb torn and bleeding does not fling himself into 
the arms of the Shepherd ; the Shepherd knows that the 



*It is related of the Italian patriot Garibaldi, that he once searched all 
night upon the mountains near his camp, to find a lamb lost by a Sardinian 
shepherd. In the morning, he was found sleeping late in his tent, — with 
the lamb in his bosom. 

[Book X.j 438 



EMBLEMS IN HUMAN LIFE. 

lamb is wounded, he listens to his bleating, and takes him 
in his arms. Trembling and powerless under the paw of 
the roaring lion, the lamb has no strength to go to the Shep- 
herd, but he who is mighty to save snatches him from the 
power of the enemy. 

He it is who layeth down his life for the sheep ; and they 
shall never perish, — neither shall any pluck them out of his 
hand. 

His sheep he knoweth by name. To the common eye 
there is no individuality in a flock. The shepherd knows 
them, perhaps, by their defects. "You see that sheep toes 
in a little," said one shepherd, "that other one has a 
squint • one has a little piece of wool off ; another has 
a black spot ; another has a piece out of its ear." The 
Chief Shepherd must at least know the individual fail- 
ings of his flock ; and his watch over them is with par- 
ticularity, by a separate, discriminating love. He calleth 
them by name, — your name, my name, as to our personal 
needs. 

This text, says Dr. William Hanna, indicates a living, 
personal, peculiar interest : our Saviour, with infinite ten- 
derness, watches each doubt, fear, trial, temptation, fall, 
rising again, conflict, victory, defeat, — every movement 
by which progress is advanced or retarded ; he watches 
each and all, with a solicitude as special and particular as if 
each were the object of the exclusive regard of the Saviour's 
loving heart. 

"The Christian soul lives on Christ; he is fed and 
guarded, he is kept and made peaceful, he is safe and quiet, 

439 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

as a trustful lamb under the faithful care of a kind shep- 
herd." * 

And the shepherd knoweth his own ; and he calleth 
them by name, — since the sheep are all marked ; marked 
in the ear, and in the foot, — they "hear" and they "fol- 
low." f 

" The calling and leading," J says Dr. Alex. Haleigh, 
"are always united ; he calls that he may lead. The Shep- 
herd is in movement ; he comes to abide with us, but not to 
keep us abiding in the same states and circumstances." 

Nor do the sheep, says the Kev. Hudson Taylor, tell the 
Shepherd which' way they want to go, and get him to help 
them ; but the Shepherd leads them. 

" Like bells at evening pealing, 
The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea ; 
And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing, 
Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee." 

Of all the titles of Christ, says Dean Stanley, this was 
the most popular with the early Christians : their religion 
was that of the Good Shepherd; "the kindness, the 
courage, the love, the beauty, the grace, of the Good Shep- 
herd, was to them, if we may so say, Prayer Book and 
Articles, Creed and Canon, all in one ; they looked on that 
figure, and it conveyed to them all they wanted." § 

* Professor Henry Cowles. 

f The comment made by an English preacher, upon John x : 27. 

$ John x : 3. 

§ It was written upon one of the early Christian tombs : " I, Abercius, 
am a disciple of the Pure Shepherd ; whose eyes look on all sides, as he 
feeds his flocks on the mountains and plains.* ' 

440 



EMBLEMS IN HUMAN LIFE. 

If Jesus appears as a Shepherd to the men of the Orient, 
he appears as a Teacher to the cultivated men of the West ; 
a Teacher, apt, attractive, tender, firm, thorough, earnest, 
— training kings and priests unto God. Again, Christ 
comes among men as a Refiner, purifying till his own image 
is seen in the place of dross. 

The compassionate Jesus is also the Great Physician, 
himself without blemish, and healing the body and the 
soul. Wherever feet are weary, Christ bears up the infirm 
body. When the eyes are dim gazing on the earthly, 
Christ reveals heaven to the soul. When Jesus walks the 
earth, avenues of the wretched open before him : while be- 
hind him stand those with eyes newly opened, gazing on 
him ; tongues just loosed, speaking his name ; ears just 
opened, hearing his praises ; arms lately withered, now 
lifted to heaven in thanksgiving ; feet lately infirm, now 
running after him. Bodies worn with disease, thrill with 
new life at the words, " I will, be thou clean." 

With balm, and with healing leaves from the tree of 
life, he comes into the sick chamber : himself represented 
as the sun to bring good cheer ; himself a fountain to cool 
the air ; himself the lily and rose to bring beauty into the 
presence of decay ; himself wine and bread and meat to 
nourish the failing powers. We need no earthly physician 
so much as we need Christ. 

THE Saviour appears to us in connection with our com- 
mon affairs, as if to serve us in the things we most 
use and need. 

441 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

It is as if we were to find him in the path we daily tread, 
seeing in him the new and living Way ; the way of life, 
the way of truth, the way of holiness, the way of peace, 
the way of salvation. So Christ is the Truth ; and he is 
the Word, the expression of the truth. And if he is the 
Way and the Truth he is also the Life ; we live in him, and 
move in him, and have our being in him. He is the light 
of Life, the breath of Life, Life from the dead. He is the 
tree of Life, the water of Life, the bread of Life, the 
Prince of Life. He that hath the Son hath Life. 

And day by day, as we go in and out of our homes, let us 
know that Christ is the Door, — the Door of heaven which 
opens from within. And for the earth, the Door of the 
coming Eden. When will the human race, trying for sixty 
centuries to regain the joys of paradise, enter through that 
Door ? * And if Christ is the Door he is also the Key, the 
Key of David. 

" Draw nigh, draw nigh, O David's Key, 
The heavenly gate will ope to Thee. 
Make safe the road that we must go, 
And close the path that leads below, f 

And if Christ is the Door and the Key, he has also been 
our Dwelling Place in all generations. He opens to us a 
Rest, a Home ; and calls into it all who labor and are heavy 
laden. 

*" Christ said himself , lam the door. What is the door for — to 
look at? However exquisite its workmanship, when you have got through 
looking at it, you push it open and go in. Christ is the door through 
which God came in to the human race, through which the human race 
comes in unto God." — Lyman Abbott, D.D. 

f Mediaeval Advent Hymn. 

442 




CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Mystical Union. 



k OST wonderful yet, of all the wonderful names 
of Jesus, we find Christ entering our homes to 
abide with us as our most intimate Friend. 
He comes in upon those sad days when 
we bury our dead ; for he bears the name the Man of 
Sorrows, and he is acquainted with grief. He stood as if 
chief mourner at the grave of Lazarus; and — most com- 
forting fact — his weeping was in mere sympathy with 
sorrowing sisters, although he knew that the brother would 
at once arise. 

His heart of love beats therefore the more warmly 
toward us, because we are sinners needing his love and 
his friendship. He was called the Friend of Sinners. We 
accept the charge, and make it our boast and glory. Christ 
was the Friend of the vilest of men ; all men vile before 
him, — and yet his love fastened to them all as if by the 
nails of his crucifixion. 

Are we prepared, therefore, to hear another name, and 
to believe that Christ is also to us the Heavenly Guest, 
promising to abide with his disciples ? He knocks at the 

[Book X.] 443 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

door, and if any man opens, he will come in unto him and 
sup with him. This man rejecteth — no receiveth — sin- 
ners and eateth with them. Behold here the Hidden Manna, 
the Bread which cometh down from heaven. * Coming from 
his noble toils and high enterprises in saving a race, he 
spreads a table under our lowly roof, and feasts with us 
until we are ready to renounce the earth as a wilderness 
and the things of the world as dreams and go forth to 
follow Jesus only, and to go home with him at nightfall. 

The Bible is full of this idea of a personal presence 
abiding with us ; f and we open this Book in vain, till we 
find Jesus coming to be our Guest, — abiding in us. He 
enters our homes with a word of greeting, and interests 
himself in our affairs, J and folds our children to his arms. 

I need not wander over the mountains of Judea vainly 
seeking the footsteps of the Lord ; Christ is within. Day 
by day, therefore, I sing St. Bernard's Hymn : — 

" I seek for Jesus in repose, 
When round my heart its chambers close : 
Abroad, and when I shut my door, 
I long for Jesus evermore." 

WHEN, however, we speak of the term Friend, as being 
the most wonderful of the titles borne by the Saviour? 
we ought to seek to sound its depths, and know what the 

* " Without Thee, my table is unspread. " — Thomas A. Kempis. 

f II. Cor. xiii : 15. Gal. iii : 20, 28. I. Cor. xi : 15, 19. Rom. viii : 
9,10. Phil, iv: 13. 

J "A rule, I have had for years, is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a 
personal Friend." — Dwight L. Moody. 

444 



THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM. 

Scripture really means by it. How strange then are the 
words we hear. Christ is to us not only a sympathizing 
Friend, and the Friend of Sinners, and a Heavenly Guest, 
but he enters our homes, claiming to be one of the members 
of the family, nay, the very Head of the house. 

Every gentle name Christ bears. Every name we love 
Christ bears. Every kind relation he sustains to us. Who- 
soever shall do the will of my Father which is heaven, the 
same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. There is a 
Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,* As one whom 
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. As a father 
pitieth his children, so this our Everlasting Father pities us, 
and is delighted with the prattling of his children. He has 
loved us with an everlasting love. And best of all, most 
wonderful of all, it is written : Thy Maker is thine Husband ; 
the Lord of Hosts is his name, f 

The Heavenly Bridegroom left his Father's house, that 
he might cleave to his bride, the Church. Is not this thy 
Friend, O daughter of Jerusalem ? " Saw ye him whom 
my soul loveth ? I sought him, but I found him not." Yet 
even now I hear his voice calling : I " Behold, I have pre- 
pared my dinner ; my oxen and my f atlings are killed, and 
all things are ready : come unto the marriage." If human 

*Prov. xviii : 24. It is this text that has given to our Lord the title Our 
Elder Brother, so scriptural in its thought, if not in its words. 

f Isa. liv : 5. Compare Hos. ii : 19, 20. I will betroth thee unto me 
forever ; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, 
and in loving kindness, and in mercies. 

X Matt, xxii : 4. Comp. Rev. xix : 7-9 ; xxi : 2 ? 9 ; xxii : 17 t 

445 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

love makes us so happy in our common life, how happy shall 
we be if the Son of God loves us. With the joy of the bride- 
groom, it is written, shall thy God rejoice over thee. The 
strongest phrases known to human lips for the expression 
of the heart's affection, are thus used in the Bible to set 
forth the Divine love to man, — love before we were born, 
from the foundation of the world. No bridegroom is so full 
of joy as God rejoicing in his love for those who love him. 
No bride is so joyous as that soul to whom God manifests 
his love. Neither death nor life upon the earth, nor angels 
and principalities in heaven, nor anything present or future, 
in the heights above nor the depths below, can separate 
Christ from His love to us.* 

He is to us, therefore, the Fairest of the Sons of Men, the 
Chief among Ten Thousand, and the one altogether lovely ; 
whom not having seen we love, and in whom, though we 
see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory. It is written, thine eyes shall see the 
King in his beauty : and we will take up the words of 
Rutherford, " I want nothing now, but a further revela- 
tion of the beauty of the unseen Son of God." 

Yet what is this that St. Bernard is saying ? " O hard 
and hardened sons of Adam, not to be softened by such 
kindness, by such a flame, by such great ardor of love, by 
so eager a Lover, who expends precious treasure for the 



*Rom. viii: 38, 39. When a (tying soldier was asked by the chap- 
lain, of what persuasion he was, he replied, " I am persuaded that neither 
death nor life can separate me from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus. " 

446 



THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM. 

vilest wares." Is Christ the Beloved, and do you love him 
not ? Who are they, amid all the votaries of this world's 
fashions, who are preparing their wedding garments, and 
making ready to sit down at the Marriage Supper of the 
Lamb ? Have you a home ? It is no home, till Christ is in 
it. Till you call God " Father," you are an orphan : till 
you call Christ " Brother," you are friendless. You need 
no love so much as you need the comforting love of Christ. 




447 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

Alpha and Omega. 



(5f|""N considering the relation in which Christ stands to 
man, we find that in the Wonderful Name of Jesus 
he is called the Intercessor. We hear therefore a 
voice from heaven, the voice of prayer, Christ inter- 
ceding for his people. 

According to the Bible, Christ's present activity in be- 
half of his people is of a twofold nature: He "abides 
with" his disciples upon the earth, and he bears their names 
before his Father's throne in heaven, interceding for them. 
Or, to put it in another way : As God the Creator is now 
engaged in sustaining, preserving, and governing the forces 
of the universe, so God the Redeemer, the Incarnate God, 
is still carrying on the work begun in the new creation. 
Christ has explicitly told us that the Father himself loveth 
us, and God in Christ is now carrying to completion the 
work begun in his earthly mission. We may then take 
great comfort with Paul in thinking of the present love of 
Christ for his people, as set forth under the figure of one 
ever living to make intercession for us. 

As once upon the Judean hills, so now in the heavenly 
hill country, he prays for all who shall believe on his name ; 

[Book X.] 448 



ALPHA AND OMEGA. 

interceding for us, as really as if he had a closet in our 
own house, into which he should go day by day to pray 
for us. 

When therefore we ask the relation which Christ bears 
to man's salvation, we may believe with Origen, that Christ 
becomes all things to all men, " according to the necessities 
of the whole creation capable of being redeemed by him " ; 
"Happy," therefore, "are they, who have advanced so far 
as to need the Son of God no longer as a healing Physician, 
no longer as a Shepherd, no longer as the Redemption ; but 
who need him only as the Truth, the Word, the Sanctifica- 
tion, and in whatever other relation he stands to those 
whose maturity enables them to comprehend what is most 
glorious in his character." 

And in the relation which Jesus bears to man, he is set 
forth as our Righteousness, through whom we are treated 
as if we had never sinned. So that we hide behind Christ, 
the expression of God's Mercy, and the Divine Justice looks 
not upon us but upon the Lord our Righteousness. 

Christ is therefore to us the true Passover, by which the 
angel of spiritual death is made to pass by. And when we 
come to the great change from life to life, Christ is the 
Resurrection ■ and he shall change our vile body, that it 
may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, when we 
know him and the power of his resurrection. And when 
we come to the Great Day of Trial, as Christ is the Coun- 
selor of God, so he is the Advocate of man. Is he the 
Wisdom of God, wonderful in counsel ? We therefore may 
boldly put in our claim on that dread Day, " Lord, under- 

449 29 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

take for me." And when that Day dawns we shall behold 
him, — our nearest Friend, our Heavenly Guest, our Bride- 
groom, who is our own Advocate, sitting in the place of the 
Supreme Judge of the assembled universe.* 

THE Scriptures thus reveal Christ as all and in all to 
the believer ; or, to put it in the words of the beloved 
John, Christ is to us the Alpha and the Omega, the First 
and the Last, the Beginning and the End : Christ, Alpha, 



* " The moment- Christ appeared, he became a judgment, or a judge. 
There was no visible bench, no formal sentence. He was ever anxious to 
remove the impression that condemnation was his earthly errand. He 
said, < I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.' Neverthe- 
less the judgment comes, and by a law inwrought in all our souls. No 
one of us can ever be as if Christ had not appeared on the earth. To 
hear the name of Christ alters the relations of every human being to the 
highest facts, — to God, to eternity. It was not so much any special say- 
ing ; it was his character, his very nature, that was judicial. As soon as 
he was manifest, the whole world of men about him fell apart, and souls 
took their places, on the right hand and the left. It was as if that divine 
presence located instantly every human life on earth. And so he added : 
1 Though I came not into the world to judge it, though that is not my 
special mission here in the body, but to manifest God to you ; yet after- 
ward, in the world to come, and in consequence of that manifestation, 
judgment will come, solemn, awful, inevitable, sudden as a thief in the 
night. The word that I speak unto you, that shall judge you.' 

"The question, then, for the individual is this: Do we see Christ? 
Do we see and recognize our Lord? Whether he has come, where he is, 
whether he can be found, is not the matter we have to consider ; nor 
whether we belong to him. He has come : he lives : he is visible to the 
eyes of faith : his life goes forth into the race forever, flowing into all 
hearts that will open to receive it, making them sons and kings and priests 
to God." — Bishop F. D. Huntington. 

450 



ALPHA AND OMEGA. 

promised to the first family ; Christ, Omega, the Last, in 
whom all the families of the world will be blessed : Christ 
at first revealed as the Crusher of the Serpent, and at the 
last revealed as having all things put under his feet : Christ, 
Alpha, figured in the first sacrifice ; Christ, Omega, the last 
Great Sacrifice : Christ at first driving guilty man from 
Eden with a flaming sword ; Christ at last burning the 
world, and by fire cleansing the foul places of sin : Christ 
the Author, Christ the Finisher of faith : Christ the Alpha, 
the name we utter in our prayer at the beginning of every 
day ; Christ the Omega, the name in which we pray in the 
evening of every day : Christ the name pronounced over 
the newborn child, that the blessing of Alpha may be on 
him ; Christ the name pronounced over the hoary man in 
dying, that the blessing of Omega may be upon him. The 
first voice of heaven is 5 Blessed be Alpha ; and there will 
never cease a voice in heaven crying, Blessed be Omega ; 
the Beginning and the End. 

Omega, Alpha, First and Last, 
Holy One in ages past, 
God of cycles yet to come, — 
Stones to praise Thee are not dumb ; 
Stony heart Thy glory sings, 
Broken heart with praises rings. 

iEons old Thy mercy's birth, 

Ere foundations of the earth 

Rose from ancient gloom and night ; 

Ages endless in their flight 

Mark Thy love, Thou First and Last, — 

Binding me secure and fast. 

451 



CHAPTER SIX. 

The Royal Diadem, 



■-se^.^3^- 



tOU may learn Christ through and through from 
Alpha to Omega, all his titles, all his honors, his 
riches,- his powers, his praises, his countless 
glories ; count up all his royal names ; deem him honorable. 
You may gather his many crowns and royal gems, his 
purple robes and the garment that was made red when he 
trod the winepress alone. You may find all songs and every 
kind of music, and praise him whose powers are without 
limit, Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, from ever- 
lasting to everlasting. "Bring," "Bring," said a dying 
soldier. " Bring what, father ? " asked his daughter. 

" < Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all. ' " 

All these Scriptural Names of Christ are windows, 
through which we gaze in, and see the beauty of Christ. 
The character of Christ shines out through these names, — 
a character of Infinite Love ; God rejoicing to display his 
love to them who love him in the most varied phrases that 
finite beings can comprehend, as if he were never weary of 
[Bookx.] 452 



THE ROYAL DIADEM. 

inventing new forms in which to show forth Christ the 
expression of the Divine Love to men. The variety of 
character revealed in the Wonderful Name of Jesus is a 
theme for never ceasing praises. As in every way we seek 
to please those dear to us on earth, and satisfy all the long- 
ings of human friendships, so our Saviour represents him- 
self as seeking in every way to please those who have 
committed themselves to him. The various names of Christ 
are the different phases of his love to men. These are his 
diadems : these are the many crowns he wears, each of 
peculiar glory. 

Yet the name which underlies them all is Love : God is 
Love. All the colors of nature are resolvable into certain 
primary colors ; and as the brilliant bow of promise, the 
arch of glory, rising in the eastern sky after a shower upon 
a summer's afternoon, is built by the mingling and blending 
of the three primary colors, — so the resplendent beauty of 
these names of Christ, arching our common life like a bow of 
heavenly promise, is all built upon God's Love to man, that 
love wearing an almost endless variety of form and color 
and name. This, then, is what is meant by the voice of the 
old Hebrew prophet, when he cried out concerning the 
Messiah, " His Name shall be called Wonderful." 



I ONCE saw a little model of ancient Jerusalem a few feet 
square ; but however accurate the measurements and 
exact the imitation in miniature, I could never feel that I 
had seen the City of the Great King. So the glory of Christ, 

453 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

as it is, can never be set forth even by the delineation of 
his character in the very words of Holy Writ. But such 
hints as we get, are to be used ; that we ourselves may be 
conformed to his image. The Bible gives us no hint of 
Christ's physical features, but we have a portrait of his 
soul ; and this is to stand before us, the ideal character, like 
the divine pattern for Hebrew building once shown in the 
mount of God. "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of 
the heavenly calling, consider Christ Jesus." " Consider," 
"intently gaze," as one who seeks to copy. We are changed 
in beholding him : as it is written, " But we all with open 
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are 
changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as 
by the spirit of the Lord." As we intently gaze on Christ, 
seeking to copy his character, the Spirit gives us first one 
glory, then another, till we become like him — when we 
shall see him as he is. 

Imitation of Christ is in no way so successful as when it 
is pursued with a passion of love to Christ. We cry in the 
words of St. Francis, " Let me die of love for Thee, O God 
of Charity, who hast expired for love of me." We love him 
because he first loved us. 

How, then, shall the love of Christ constrain us, that we 
may willingly toil in weary service, and all the years seem 
as nothing to us for the love we bear our Saviour ? * It is 



*<<Love lightens the heaviest burdens, makes difficulties easy, and 
smooths the rugged ways of duty, and takes out the bitterness of suffer- 
ing." — Thomas a Kempis. 

454 



THE ROYAL DIADEM. 

the love of Christ which constrains us. We serve, says St. 
Bernard, " in that love which casteth out fear, feels no toils, 
thinks of no merit, asks no reward, and yet carries with it 
a mightier restraint than all things else. ~No terror so 
spurs one on, no reward so strongly attracts, no demand of 
a due so pressingly urges." 

Let us, therefore, see to it that we love Christ more than 
everything else. Let us for the moment cease to talk and 
think of duties done, or work to do. Let us become ab- 
sorbed in simply loving Christ. Thus we shall gain the 
greatest possible motive-power to impel us in leading a 
successful Christian, Christlike, life. Since Christ is all 
and in all to us, let us, like the disciples after the trans- 
figuration, lift up our eyes and see no man save Jesus only. 

We will with joy adopt for ourselves the words of John, 
the forerunner of Christ, and delight in bearing for our 
name the sweetest of earthly titles, "The friend of the = 
Bridegroom." We will take up the words of the Apostle 
and make them our own, and whatsoever we do in word or 
deed, we will do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. In the 
wakeful hours of the night we will sing the words of the 
old Hebrew songs : With my soul have I desired Thee in 
the night ; and when I awake I am still with Thee. And 
in all the hours of the day we will bear about with us 
Christ. 

" If," says Gregory Nazianzen, " I have any possession, 
health, credit, learning, — this is all the contentment I have 
of them : that I have somewhat I may despise for Christ, 
who is the all-desirable one." And we hear the voice of 

455 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

St. Augustine, saying, "My origin is Christ, my root is 
Christ, my head is Christ." And we see one of the old 
martyrs raising his flaming hands to heaven shouting, 
" None but Christ ! None but Christ ! " * 

Is Christ all and in all to us ? Do we see Jesus only ? 
Do we ourselves day by day seek to live the very life of 
Christ ? Can we lay aside our prejudices, and even many 
of our friends, and enter into that strange and solitary kind 
of life which he led, and learn to look on this world and all 
its maxims as he did ? If Christ is to us all that we need, 
and if we love him with a passion of devotion, we shall be 
approaching, little by little, the life he led in the flesh, be- 
coming more and more like our Lord. And this is the only 



* " The name of Jesus," says St. Bernard, " is not only light, but 
also food ; it is likewise oil, without which all the food of the soul is dry ; 
it is salt, unseasoned by which, whatever is presented to us is insipid ; it 
is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart, medicine to 
the soul ; and there is no charm in any discourse, in which his name is 
not heard." 

The Prayer of St. Patrick, as he was going to Tara to preach before 
the king and nobles when he feared lest he be killed at Tara, is called, St. 
Patrick's Armor or Breastplate : — 

" At Tara, to-day, the strength of God pilot me, the power of God 
preserve me ; may the wisdom of God instruct me, the eye of God watch 
over me, the ear of God hear me, the word of God give me sweet talk, the 
hand of God defend me, the way of God guide me : Christ be with me, 
Christ before me, Christ after me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ 
over me, Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand, Christ on this 
side, Christ on that side, Christ at my back ; Christ in the heart of every 
person to whom I speak — Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks to 
me — Christ in the eye of every person who looks upon me — Christ in 
the ear of every person who hears me at Tara to-day." 

456 



THE ROYAL DIADEM. 

thing worth living for. Vain is it that Christ has appeared 
upon the earth with Wonderful Name and Infinite Love, 
unless we are drawn by his love, and run after him, seek- 
ing to make his life our life, a life of service to God in self- 
sacrifice for man.* 



* See special Articles by Evangelist D. L. Moody, page 54,2; 
Rev. H. M. Wharton, D.D., page 545 ; Rev. Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D., 
page 548 ; and Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D., page 559. 




457 



BOOK ELEVEN 

5-&-S 



The Master and His 
Message. 



Contributed Chapters. 



Introductory Note by tine -Aju.th.or. 
In the interest of the reader it has seemed better to separate these contributed 
chapters from the narrative of our Lord's life by the Author, giving them suitable 
prominence in special books. 



•«$•-&-•$»- 



As a Lad. in the Temple. Chapter i. Page 459. 

By E. R. Hendrix, LL.D., Bishop of the M. E. Church, South. 

A.s a Pattern of To=day. Chapter 2. page 463. 

By J. H. Vincent, D.D., Bishop of the M. E. Church. 

The Guide of Life. Chapter 3. page 466. 

By E. H. Capen, LL.D., Pres. Tufts College. 

Our Imitation of the Master. Chapter 4. page 472. 

By Geo. E. Horr, Jr., Editor " The Watchman," Boston. 

The Church in Samaria. Chapter 5. Page 475. 

By Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Boston. 

A. Story of Skzill. Chapter 6. Page 480. 

By President W. M. Barbour, D.D., LL.D., Montreal. 

The Democracy of Jesus. Chapter 7. Page 486. 

By William Herridge, B.D., Ottawa, Ont. 

Character of His Teaching and Work. 

Chapter 8. Page 492. 
By Geo. P. Fisher, LL.D., Prof. Yale University. 

The Master, the Message. Chapter 9. Page 506. 

By Augustus H. Strong, D.D. LL.D., President of 

Rochester Theological Seminary. 

Not Law, hut Love, Chapter 10. Page 512. 

By John S. Sewall, M.A., D.D., Professor Bangor Theological 

Seminary and late Professor B^wdoin College. 




CHAPTER ONE. 

A.S a. Lad at ttie Temple. 

By Rev. E. R. Hendrix, S.T.D., LL.D., Bishop M. E. Church, South. 

o. GN^&£ -K->- 

■ ■ -feT* c^^o ^^ 

NE of the felicities of the Revised Version is the 
making clear what our Lord meant in his reply to 
his mother after her anxious search everywhere 
else but in the temple, for her missing son. A 
sword pierced through the heart of the virgin mother as it 
had not done since she heard of Herod's slaughter of the 
children of Bethlehem in his mad effort to slay her first 
born. As Joseph and Mary missed the boy Jesus, they left 
the caravan which had protected them both in their ap- 
proach to Jerusalem and thus far on their return journey. 
They now began to experience some of the difficulties to 
which Jesus might have been exposed, during his separa- 
tion among "the wild elements of the warring nationalities 
which at such a moment were assembled about the walls of 
Jerusalem," due to a revolt against the Romans which had 
begun only two years before under Judas of Gamala. 
Their mental agony increased with every hour of their 
fruitless search. 

Like all large cities, Jerusalem had its snares for youth- 

[ Book XI.] 459 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ful and unwary feet. Would the lad, if otherwise safe, be 
drawn by idle curiosity to those quarters of the city where 
human nature was to be seen most in ruins and daily be- 
coming more bestial ? What evil associations might leave 
their scars upon the very soul of the boy Jesus if he unwit- 
tingly wandered near scenes of vice? Is the promise to 
be made of none effect after all, through the carelessness of 
the mother of Jesus ? "A wounded spirit who can bear ? " 
So the very power of thought seemed suspended amid her 
self-reproaches, and the place which Mary should have 
searched first of all was the last to be visited. " Wist ye not 
that I must be in my Father's house ? " 

How much the Lord's house must have been a theme of 
conversation between Mary and Jesus. From her lips he 
had doubtless learned those hymns of ascent which he was 
to sing with the multitude, when, from the slopes of Olivet, 
the temple should burst full upon his youthful vision : "I 
was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the house 
of the Lord ;•" "I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains 
whence cometh my help ;" " My help cometh from the Lord, 
which made heaven and earth." How the story of the 
royal builders had been told to this Son of David, and how 
must his wondering eyes have sought every expression in 
those maternal eyes which looked into his again, as she 
pondered anew these things in her heart. Had she not 
taught him reverence for his Father's house, and explained 
to him the meaning of every court and altar, and the sym- 
bolism of every vestment and of every sacrifice ? How he 
must have asked about the Holy of Holies, and the blood 

4G0 



BY BISHOP E. R. HENDRIX. 

with which the High Priest sprinkled the mercy seat, ere he 
knew that He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sin of the world. 

O Virgin Mother, where couldst thou expect to find thy 
son but in the temple, whose courts he had already learned 
to love and which he first began to tread but a few brief days 
ago ? It is here where his first recorded words are to be ut- 
tered, " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house ? " 
What other place could have charms to win him from such 
a mother's side ? Was not this the place, of all others, which 
she had taught him to love, and had she so little faith as to 
doubt that henceforth he would show a passion for his 
Father's house ? Through its stately courts he was to move 
once at the beginning, and then again at the close of his 
public ministry — with scourge of plaited cords to drive out 
those buyers and sellers and money changers who had made 
of his Father's house a house of merchandise and a den of 
thieves. " The zeal of thine house had eaten me up." 

We lay much stress upon last words, though they be 
spoken in weakness and pain and are scarcely intelligible. 
We still think them characteristic, and cherish them. But 
not more characteristic were Christ's last words, tenderly 
caring for his mother or praying for his murderers, than 
these first words, showing his passion for his Father's 
house. What questions had not been answered for him 
there, in that atmosphere where moral and religious ques- 
tions are always best settled for souls bent on having them 
settled right? Reverence is the basis of true character. 
The youth of our Lord, with all the temptations to indolence 

461 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

and self-assertion which mark that critical period of life, 
was kept pure and unmarred, and was stimulated into holy 
activity, by his reverence for sacred things. 

While religion is not free from the law of habit, so that 
what passes for religious conduct may be due to the force 
of habit and need not be the expression of a deep personal 
conviction, let us note that with the help of the grooves of 
habit our very minds and hearts may be kept where gra- 
cious influences may mould them aright. Our divine 
Exemplar nowhere sets us a more helpful example than 
when in youth he preferred the house of God above his 
chief joy. 




462 



CHAPTER TWO. 

As a Pattern of To-Day. 

By Rev. John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D., Bishop M. E. Church. 

■ 4MjsgM§^ • 

(5j*|""F Jesus of Nazareth were to appear in any of our 
American cities in this good year One thousand, eight 
hundred and ninety-seven, one wonders what impres- 
sion he would make. One need not wonder. First of 
all, he would not come in oriental garb, with long hair and 
with flowing robes after the manner of the Orient, and as 
he probably appeared in the first century of the era which 
bears his name. His wisdom is too great, his knowledge 
of human nature too thorough, his reverence for the law of 
adaptation too profound to justify the eccentricities of a 
costume entirely foreign to the age which he might come to 
influence. We know too well the value of complete adjust- 
ment to environment in order to the right control of that 
environment in the higher interests of life, to imagine 
Christ as coming in any fashion which might excite preju- 
dice or mainly attract attention. Therefore, if Christ were 
to come to us in this nineteenth century, we might expect 

[Book XL] 463 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

to find him dressed as other men dressed, living as other 
men lived, and mingling with the people of this age in 
business and society as he did in the age to which he his- 
torically belongs. I doubt exceedingly whether he would 
come even in clerical costume. Our friend, Mr. Dwight L. 
Moody, who so worthily represents the Christ he serves, in 
his love of righteousness and in his loyalty to the Christian 
faith, would furnish a much more probable model of cos- 
tume for the living Christ in the nineteenth or twentieth 
century than would any clergyman or priest of any Chris- 
tian church. 

The imitation of Christ in the nineteenth century must 
be an imitation in quality of character, in aim of life, and 
in method and spirit of service. As it is not necessary that 
Christ should come in the flesh again in order to do his 
work in the world, it is sufficient that his followers possess 
his spirit, hold his truth, love with his love, help as he 
helped, and order their lives by the standards which he set 
up both by teaching and example. 

The larger control, the wider sphere of influence char- 
acterizing the modern Christian, extends very widely the 
field of his activity. In the day of Christ neither the 
Master nor his disciples could have any immediate influence 
upon the social and political conditions of the world. To- 
day matters are very different. The Christian stands at 
the very center of civilization. He helps to make the 
forces which control political life. He has his hand on the 
social activities of the times. The opportunity is to-day 
a Christian opportunity, — to edit papers, write books, deposit 

464 



BY BISHOP J. H. VINCENT. 

ballots, control public sentiment, promote righteousness. 
He is not under a scepter which he cannot influence. He 
himself holds the scepter that represents all the power the 
world has. Therefore, the field of his activity is wholly 
different from that occupied by the Christ in the days of 
his incarnation, and all this is because of what Christ did 
during his incarnation and what he continues to do through 
the means of his truth and spirit in the world. 

With this conception of the Christian's responsibility, 
how important it is that children and adults should be 
taught the nature of Christian life, and the necessity of 
imitating Christ, not by the life of the hermit, not by ec- 
clesiastical symbolism and ceremony, not by anachronistic 
eccentricity, but by conformity in aim, motive, spirit, and 
methods adapted to the age, a conformity calculated to im- 
press society with the value of righteousness, self-sacrifice, 
unselfishness, and faith in eternal things. How important 
it is to build up the "Kingdom of God" as more than an 
outward kingdom, rather as a family united by regenerative 
power, gracious adoption, and the indwelling, witnessing, 
victorious spirit which is revealed in the four Gospels as 
the spirit of Christ. To imitate Christ in this age, each 
Christian believer must in this age be like Christ in personal 
character. 




465 



30 



CHAPTER THREE. 

The Quiide of Life. 

By Rev. Elmer II. Capen, D.D., LL.D., President of Tufts College. 



-%y©^ 




NE of the most instructive phases of our religion is 
its universal, perennial, human interest. The 
Bible makes its appeal to living men in every age 
and under every conceivable condition. The 
characters of the Old Testament, Abraham, Jacob, David, 
Solomon, become our teachers because they are so like our- 
selves : we are interested in reading the story of their lives, 
because we see not only our own frailties reflected, but our 
possibilities of high thinking and noble action. And when 
we open the pages of the New Testament, we find in Jesus 
a spotless character, yet he is human at every point ; and 
his perfection is not an impossible perfection. He does 
nothing which we do not feel that we could do, if our wills 
were strong enough and our feeling of self-interest were 
sufficiently in check. So that Jesus becomes the object for 
imitation in every life. 

One indeed may say, when he is casting about for the 
true standard of human conduct: "My life is American, 
and it is in the nineteenth century ; how then can Jesus, 

[Book XI.] 466 



BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPEN. 

whose life was in the midst of a Jewish and Greco-Roman 
civilization, furnish any criterion for me ? " The guidance, 
however, which we are seeking pertains to the spirit. It is 
the teaching of the New Testament that we should walk 
according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. It is 
the spirit of Jesus with which we have to do. We are to 
meet life's duties in the spirit of the Master. 



JESUS is the guide as to the aims of life. All human life 
must have an aim to be significant. If there are any 
with a disposition to drift about and take what comes, 
if they have no set purpose and only live from day to day, 
they do not follow the method of the Master. "Wist ye 
not that I must be about my Father's business ? " was the 
all searching question which he put to his mother even in 
boyhood ; and from that hour to the moment when he 
bowed his head on Calvary and said, "It is finished," there 
was not the slightest deviation from his purpose to fulfill 
the will of God. It is possible, in this respect, for every 
person to walk in the steps of Jesus : and to determine, 
through careful consideration, by what course he can best 
accomplish the demands of the Creator upon him ; and then 
to pursue it steadfastly and unfalteringly to the end. 

And in making this decision, if we would follow Jesus, 
our aims must be pure. They must not end in temporali- 
ties. If, for example, a man seeks wealth, or fame, or 
power for its own sake he is certainly not in the way of 
Christ. Jesus sought simply to do the will of God as it 

467 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

was disclosed to him in Galilee and Judea in the time of 
Tiberius Cassar. In the same way men may find out here 
and now what God wants and proceed to do it. In doing 
it, they may, indeed, acquire wealth, honor, and the mas- 
tery of the world, — this, perhaps, because they are obedient 
to the will of God ; but if these things captivate the heart 
or serve in any way to obscure the clear vision of the divine 
will, to that extent they obstruct and defeat the ends of a 
true life. A pure purpose is what Jesus teaches ; and if 
that be attained, outward conditions do not count. 



JESUS may be a guide also in our conduct, as to the 
common everyday life which often seems dull and 
petty. In great crises, men of common mould often 
rise to sublimity of action ; the circumstances in which they 
are placed stimulating them, and calling forth their best 
powers. Many of us feel that if we were on a platform 
broad enough and high enough so that we could stand 
in the public gaze, and that if we could perceive the far 
reaching consequences of our efforts, we could then avoid 
meanness and servility, and really do great things. So we 
find it hard to obey the highest law in things petty, common- 
place, trivial, and unnoticed. Yet, if we turn to the great 
Example, we find obedience possible, even in this lower 
way. Men may ask themselves, in the humblest form of 
service they are called on to render, however obscure and 
ordinary the duty : " What would Jesus do if he were in 

468 



BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPEN. 

my place ? " And the answer will come with convincing 
certainty to the inner consciousness, If we are candid with 
ourselves we can never be in doubt as to the way in which 
we ought to walk. 

It is Jesus who discloses the spirit for the right discharge 
of daily duty, so that it will no longer be deemed mere 
drudgery, so that those who are punctilious, and conscien- 
tiously faithful in performing homely duties, may find their 
souls uplifted and strengthened by the service. The only 
way to bring heaven down to earth, the only way to trans- 
figure toil, the only way to convert the world into the king- 
dom of God, is to carry the spirit of devotion into that which 
is trivial as well as that which is exalted. In this way the 
sordid work of sweeping and dusting, sowing and reaping, 
selling merchandise and casting accounts, is glorified, not 
less than leading an army to battle, or swaying a senate, 
or preaching the Gospel to the poor. 



O UT above all Jesus is the guide of men in the varied 
| ) relations which they sustain to their fellows. No 
man can hold his life in isolation. We touch human- 
ity at every point. Our duties are not single but involved. 
Environment is often the determining factor in conduct. 
The withdrawal of men from contact with the world, which 
has been practiced under every religion, finds no real war- 
rant in Christianity. Every person is a member of the 
family into which he is born, of the social circle where 
his work lies, and of the state to which his allegiance 

. 469 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

is due. His duty, therefore, is not necessarily what he 
may desire within himself. His inclinations and tastes, 
nay, his aspirations and longings, may point unmis- 
takably in certain directions. Yet he may be withheld 
from the realization of his inward purpose, because the 
circumstances in which he finds himself, and which he 
cannot control, absolutely forbid. He must remember 
therefore that this is the law of nature. It is likewise the 
law of Christ. His life was amongst men. He was no 
ascetic, but " came eating and drinking," and he was the 
"friend of publicans and sinners." In other words he met 
every class in- the community and discharged his full 
obligation towards them. No man who calls him Lord can 
do otherwise than to meet the complete demand of domestic 
and social and civic duties. 

So, too, Jesus teaches the spirit that must pervade all 
human relationships before his kingdom can prevail. It is 
not what we do with and for men, but the motive from 
which we do it, that determines whether we are the 
disciples of Christ or not. "He went about doing good." 
He did good to all classes of people, and kept right 
on doing it, though he said that his fidelity must end 
in his crucifixion. The example of Jesus, then, teaches 
us not to do this particular thing or that particular 
thing, but to forget ourselves in what we do. Self- 
denial must be our attitude in all our relations with the 
world. It may be very gratifying to those who have per- 
formed heroic deeds to have the adoration and applause of 
countless hosts. But the real test comes, when to do the 

470 



BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPEN. 

right involves hatred and contumely. This is Christ's law. 
Do for men what ought to be done for them, and never 
falter whether such action brings applause or scorn. This 
law changes not with the lapse of time. It is just as per- 
tinent in the nineteenth century as it was in the first cen- 
tury ; and when all the centuries shall have been counted 
up, it will still remain the law of human life. 




471 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

Omr Imitation of the Master, 

By Rev. George E. Horr, D.D., Editor of The Watchman. 




TRICTLY speaking, the Christian is to be a dis- 
ciple rather than an imitator of Christ. He is 
not to seek slavishly to copy the acts of Jesus, 
but to take the Master's principles and temper 
and apply them in a great variety of circumstances in 
which Jesus himself was not placed. Paul clearly suggests 
this when he exhorts the Philippian Christians : " Let this 
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." And he 
proceeds to show how the self-denial which actuated our 
Lord in his mission should prompt the conduct of his disci- 
ples. The Christian resembles the navigator who, under 
some instructor, has thoroughly mastered the principles 
of navigation. The instructor does not describe every 
possible combination of circumstances in which the master 
of a ship may be called to act, but he gives him sound 
principles which will lead the pupil to act wisely in any 
circumstances. 

But Christ is not simply an instructor, or an historical 
and external model. The New Testament teaches that he 
[book XL] 472 



BY EDITOR G. E. HORR. 

is a vital force in the souls of those who have spiritually 
responded to him. In the written Word we see the out- 
ward ideal ; but when the Christian looks within his own 
soul he discerns the present example of Christ. The impulse 
towards goodness, the conviction as to the course of duty, 
the aspiration toward God, indicate what we should do to 
follow Christ. "Work out your own salvation with fear 
and trembling," says Paul, "for it is God which worketh 
in you." The reason for " the fear and trembling " is that 
in our own souls we are touching the Divine life. 

We need not be in doubt as to what we are to do to 
follow Christ. In the written Word we have the external 
model ; in the impulses and promptings of the Christian 
heart the special and definite directions. If we implicitly 
follow this inner leadership, in subordination to the written 
Word, we shall find practical guidance for the imitation of 
Christ in everyday life. 

Far more than a new theology the world to-day needs 
fresh and noble conceptions of Christian character such 
as come from the submission of personal life to these 
principles. One of the urgent questions of the time is 
what manner of man would Christ be if he to-day were 
a statesman, an employer or employee, a professional 
man, an artist, a mechanic, or farmer. The man who, in 
his calling and circumstances, is acting as Christ would 
act, is rendering most effective service by illustrating the 
Christian life. Too many of our ideals of Christian char- 
acter have been derived from the mediaeval monasteries, or 
the intense language of the prayer meeting or the revival 

473 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

service. There is no greater need than for practical illus- 
trations of the imitation of Christ in the homely ways of 
daily life.* 

* Note added by the Author. I can but add to the three preceding 
Articles, and to what has been said in earlier pages of this volume, a 
brief extract from Dr. Samuel Harris' book, "God the Creator and 
Lord of all," relating to the Imitation of Christ: - — 

' < We do not properly say that in any given case we are to do just 
what Christ would have done in the same circumstances. As the Divine 
Redeemer of men his action in many particulars must be different from 
that of ordinary men. Living in a distant country and age, with a becom- 
ing conformity to peculiar customs, he would do what it would not be 
becoming to do now." 

The reader who studies carefully the preceding three chapters, and 
what was said by the Author, particularly in Book ii., Chapters 1 and 2, 
and in Book iv., will conclude that we best imitate our Lord by conform- 
ing our lives to the spirit of the Master. 




474 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

Ttie Ctiurch. in Samaria. 

By Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., LL.D. 

i&(§ 10? SO? €? ^£Sr~ • ■ 

(^ I HIS woman of Sychar has the half-heathen idea of 
t I her Messiah as of a messenger sent from a far-off 
— E— king on a distant throne. He is to come with 
heralds and body-guards ; he is to prostrate Rome, and he 
is to tell us all things. " He is coming, and he will tell us 
all things, — he, the anointed." 

"Woman, he has come. I who am talking to you am 
he. Dusty and tired with my journey, with no herald be- 
fore me and no train behind me, glad to drink from your 
pitcher because I am faint, — all the same, I am the child 
of God, and his present messenger to you. I who speak 
unto you am he." 

I do not wonder that the painters are so fond of the 
subject. But one wishes that they did not care so much 
for the mountains and the well, and cared more for him 
and for her. That he should have swept away all her prej- 
udices — prejudices born from twenty centuries ; that he, a 
dusty, tired, lonely wayfarer, should in five minutes make 
her know that he is God's son, and is speaking God's word to 

[Book XI.] 475 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

her, — this shows what manner of man he was, and what it 
is in him which makes him Saviour of the world. 

And she, on her side ? That in those five minutes every 
cloud should have rolled away from her heaven ; that all 
dust of man's travel, and all smoke from the sacrifices of 
priests, should have been cleared away, so that she can see 
that her God visits her and helps her, and that she is a 
child of God. Let the artist express that emancipation, 
and we shall know what is meant when they say, "All 
things are become new."' This is what the words "New 
Testament " mean. 

In a word, -she saw what Nicodemus could not see. 
When this same word had come to him, — "You must 
be born again"; "I don't think we can," was his reply. 
But she went up into the village, and told her people that 
this man had told her everything. 

His other disciples join him and the Samaritans from 
the village. He stays two days in this Sychar, — the typical 
city of the Gentile, to the eye of a bigoted Jew. And here 
he establishes the first church in the world. Many of the 
Samaritans believe on him, because they have seen him 
and heard him. " We have heard him ourselves, and know 
that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." What they 
heard in those two days we cannot tell ; but the central 
thing in it — to be remembered when all this was written 
down at the end of threescore years or more — was this : 
" My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to 
finish His work." "The fields are white to the harvest, 
though it is early springtime." The doctrine of this gospel 

476 



BY DR. E. E. HALE. 

to the Samaritans is that man is of God's nature, and that 
he is a fellow-worker together with God. 

In one and another mood of meditation — looking back- 
ward and looking forward — we ask ourselves what Jesus 
Christ would do for us to-day. I dare say this no-named 
woman of Sychar had asked herself the same question that 
morning. 

This is sure, that our answer would come as hers did. 
Perhaps our surprise would be as great as hers. Let us 
hope our eyes would open as quickly as hers. It is not in a 
chariot of fire descending from the clouds that her Saviour 
comes. It is not with legions of white-winged angels, or 
the clarion tones of cherubim before him and behind him, 
that he comes. It is a lonely, tired man, — dusty with travel, 
and sitting on the wellside, — whom she finds, and who is to 
tell her all things. So you and I will hear our gospel, not 
in any voice from the sky, and not in any legend written 
among the stars, but in the midst of the dust, and sweat, 
and travail of to-day. Pure religion and undefiled is for 
everybody, — black, white, gray, red, and brown. 

Now, as then, whoever Jesus met would most likely put 
the old question : " Please, where should you like to have 
me go to church ? " After eighteen or nineteen centuries the 
reply is just what it was. Woman, it is not here, it is not 
there. It is not the place of worship : it is the quality of 
worship. " God is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
worship him in spirit and in truth." 

And how shall we worship ? With this prayer or that 
hymn ? With these articles or that creed ? Answers now 

477 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

as then : Look on the fields. They are white to harvest, 

— January, March, July, or November, it is all one, they 
are always white to harvest. God 'did not finish his world. 
He is here now. He is in and with his children now — that 
with him his children may go harvesting now. Those 
join in worship of him rightly, who rightly and bravely go 
to work with him. They show they are truly his, if they 
go about their Father's business. And this is the sum and 
substance of pure religion. 

If the world seeks a monument of the place where was 
first proclaimed the truth which has made the world of 
today, that monument exists already in the old well at 
Sychar. "Jesus spoke here," says Renan, "for the first 
time, the word on which will stand the building of the 
eternal religion. Here and then he founded the pure wor- 
ship, without date and without country, which will be the 
religion of all noble souls to the end of time. The religion 
of that word and that day is not only the religion good 
for humanity, it is absolute religion. And if other planets 
have inhabitants endowed with reason and the sense of 
right, their religion cannot differ from this of Jacob's well. 
Grant that men fall back from it ; that they only cling to 
the ideal for an instant. It was a flash — this word of his 

— in the thick darkness ; and in eighteen hundred years 
the eyes of mankind (alas, of an infinitely small fraction 
of mankind) are used to it. All the same, full light will 
come ; and after the full circle of wandering, man will 
come back to this word as to the immortal expression of its 
faith and its hope." 

478 



BY DR. E. E. HALE. 

The four mottoes for the new frieze of a new church of 
the Good Samaritan might well be these four texts : — 

" Not in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem," because ours 
is a universal religion : 

" God is a spirit," — this for its statement of God : 

"I who speak to you am he," — this for its statement of 
Christ, — that he is a weary wayfarer, sitting thirsty in the 
midst of his day's work : 

" My meat is to finish God's work, and I send you to the 
harvest," — this for man's place and duty, because man is a 
child of God. 

But you and I can do better things than to design mottoes 
for the walls of a church at home. Paul's word is as true 
as it ever was, " Know ye not that the temple of God is 
holy, which temple ye are ? " These texts are not for one 
place or another place. They are truths for you and me to 
carry wherever we go. This title-page to the gospel is not 
illustrated when we go on a pilgrimage to the vale of 
Sychar ; it is when we lift up our eyes and look upon these 
fields that we illustrate it. It is when we go to work to 
accomplish our Father's work. It is when we thus bring to 
the Life of Lives, to the God who is the spirit of all life, 
the only worship, which is the worship of spirit and of 
truth. Then and only, we know what these words mean, 
" I that speak unto thee am he." They will speak in the 
midst of daily duty. He who speaks will be dusty and 
travel-worn ; but when we have heard him for ourselves, 
we too shall know that this, indeed, is the Saviour of the 
world. 

479 



CHAPTER SIX. 

A. Story of Skill. 

By the Rev W. M. Barbour, D.D., 

Principal of the Congregational College of Canada, and Late 

Chittendon Professor of Divinity, Yale University. 




OW can the incarnation of Infinite Purity deal 
with one who is a voluntary transgressor in per- 
sonal impurity ? 

Note the skill of Jesus in dealing with the 
sinner of Sychar.' 

3 HE was a Samaritan, outside the revealed law, outside 
the covenants and promises, and he did not open 
Moses and the prophets to her as he did to others. He 
first drew near her as a human being conscious of an inner 
need, one corresponding to the physical thirst they had in 
common, — suggesting in a delicate way and by a fitting 
form the attractiveness of a spiritual satisfaction. Not on 
Mount Sinai did he stand, hurling the law down upon his 
lowly hearer, as some suppose the first position of a 
preacher ought invariably to be ; but by the well of the 
Water of Life he stood, inviting one in the thirst and stain 
of sin to partake and be blest. 

[Book XI. J 480 



BY PRINCIPAL BARBOUR. 

At first his hearer did not understand him, and so he 
wisely tried to reach her in another way. He thrust one 
of the sharp arrows of the mighty into her conscience. 

"Your husband," he said, "call him hither." 

" Husband, I have no husband," was her reply. 

"Five thou hast had," — what an accurate tale of her 
life he could read — "and the sixth, he is no husband." 
And yet, with a candor becoming the Incarnate Truth, he 
gave her credit for a confession to the literal side of a fact, 
— "In that, saidst thou truly." 

And now that he had her attention and her interest so 
far as to stir her to the owning of his power, he unfolded 
what in her condition she ought to know, — deepening and 
widening his truth, till she could receive no more, but must 
run with what she had to her friends and neighbors. 

He took this woman as she was ; he plied her with what 
she could understand ; he set no impossibilities before her : 
what he said of God and the better life he expected her to 
act upon, as readily as she might feel thirst and quench it 
with water from the well ; he expected her to know God as 
one might know a parent who desires a wandering child's 
return ; he expected her to judge for herself of her welcome 
by such a Father — the God who is a spirit, if in her own 
heart she returned, no matter what she had been, no mat- 
ter where she had heard of God, — the temple and the 
holy mountain were both pushed out of sight in that glad 
Gospel. 



481 si 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

IN this, Jesus recognized a spiritual need in the human 
heart, which he alone could supply by gift, — " Whoso- 
ever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall 
never thirst." 

This same truth he preached to the crowds in the temple, 
assembled at the feasts. He assumed it in all his inter- 
course with his fellow men : "I am the light of the world ; " 
"I am the bread of life;" "I am the giver of the living 
water." These sayings indicate his idea of man, as in need 
of something to enlighten, sustain, and refresh him. Ice 
cannot melt itself : nor darkness enlighten itself : nor thirst 
quench itself : nor can the dead raise themselves into life. 
Our Lord presented himself to be to man, and to do for man, 
what man could neither be nor do for himself. 

In this incident at the well side, he acted upon the princi- 
ple that wherever a human soul is met, it can be challenged 
for its sins. In our Lord's idea of conscience, we find him 
assuming its existence, its validity, its accessibility to ap- 
peal upon personal conduct. 

This woman had partial and distorted views of revela- 
tion : as a Samaritan, she was partly of heathen origin ; and 
by religion of an unsettled faith ; yet as a subject of moral 
government our Lord addressed her, knowing that she had 
a memory, a conscience, a spirit that could meet a spiritual 
God, and a filial relationship to God, by which she could be 
found of him as his child, and as his lowly worshiper in 
her heart. 

In order to lead to her reclamation to the Father who 

482 



BY PRINCIPAL BARBOUR. 

was seeking her, Jesus convinced her of sin, not in the 
abstract as a defect, a disease, an excrescence, a develop- 
ment, or an heredity, but of sin as an actual recurring, 
intentional doing of wrong, for which she must feel herself 
personally responsible. This direct appeal to the woman's 
conscience on her present sin touched her to the quick ; 
which might not have been done by the most weighty con- 
straint to study the sinfulness of mankind, or to prepare for 
a future judgment on her conduct. 

The Master, moreover, taught the woman in regard to 
worship or approach to God : that a Spirit should be wor- 
shiped in spirit and in truth ; that the nature of God calls 
for more than form, and is contented with less than display. 
In substance he said : " Externals are not of necessary 
account, now that the Messiah has made access free to the 
Father of the soul ; it is a service of love, and not a service 
of instruments, that can be acceptable to him." It is clear, 
too, that he held that the woman was on the right track of 
thought in turning her mind towards a mediator. It was 
when he had his inquirer really awakened to her need, 
when she was convinced of sin, in view of the spiritual 
Jehovah, and when she said, " There is a Messiah to come, 
and when he is here he will tell us what we need to know," 
then came that saving word, "I that speak unto thee, am 
he." 



483 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

IT is of interest to watch the variety of feelings evidently 
stirred in his hearer, by our Lord's courteous and skillful 

treatment. She who is not skilled in reasoning nor in- 
ferring, nor in judging of cumulative evidence, who could 
not explain to herself perhaps what a ground of belief 
meant, she knows but one thing out of the many which 
might help her to a knowledge of Christ : that one thing is 
his power to know her heart, and his authority to condemn 
her life. By the manifestation of that truth, he com- 
mended himself to her conscience. For as he held the 
lamp of truth in upon her moral sense, she not only saw 
herself but himself also, — and the man who told her what 
she was, she knew could not be trifled with. 

This truth of a bad life made way for the truth about 
the revealed God and the promised salvation. The truth 
had time to do a great deal in her mind between Jacob's 
well and the village of Sychar. There was time for a 
thought upon the fact that she still had a memory record- 
ing the past, and a conscience that could be quickened 
to a new condemnation of that past. There was time for a 
thought upon what she was, and one upon what she might 
have been. She had just left one pure presence, one weary 
and in need of rest ; one ready to accept even her atten- 
tion ; and yet what tokens of purity of heart and spotless- 
ness of life were in his manners, what an " air to command " 
in words without sternness was about him. And had she 
remained pure, could she ever have been like him ? But 
even he, in his gentleness, had spoken kindly to her, though 

484 



BY PRINCIPAL BARBOUR. 

all her life was in his keeping. Bad though her past had 
been, yet he bore with her ; had told her of God ; had spoken 
of salvation : can she yet have hope, since he said, " I that 
speak unto thee am he," — can she yet have any prospect 
of deliverance from her bad past ? If on those things she 
thought, as most likely she did, yet they did not move her 
as did the revelation of her own searched heart. In that 
she could have no surmise, no supposition, no doubt : this 
searcher of the heart must have the truth. And her con- 
clusion was that he ought to be listened to. 




485 




CHAPTER SEVEN". 

The Democracy of Jesus. 

By William T. Herridge, B.D., Ottawa, Ontario. 

E who is our Saviour approaches through the door 
of seeming common place, and meets us on the 
broad thoroughfares of daily experience so 
that no one need feel strange in his gracious 
company. We can scarcely wonder, therefore, that the 
world was slow to reach a true perspective of his great- 
ness. The simple ISTazarenes. are not alone in vulgarizing 
what is near at hand, and reserving their admiration for 
some hero whose dim outline looms up in the haze of dis- 
tance. It has seemed impossible to many that the son of 
the carpenter should be also the Son of God. 

Yet in this contradiction lies the unique value of the 
Epiphany. Christ might have appeared as a priest of the 
royal line, clothed in the sacredness of his office and in 
the divinity which cloth hedge a king ; or as the great poet 
of the ideal, raying forth on all sides the flash of genius ; or 
as the profound philosopher who had studied the problems 
of life and was prepared to offer a final solution of them. 
But in either of these cases he would have been more or 
less estranged from the mass of men. It requires a peculiar 
type of mind to be attracted by the excellence of mere 
ecclesiasticism. The poet lies " hidden in the light of 

[Book XI.] 4gg 



BY REV. WILLIAM T. HERRIDGE. 

thought," and only a few will enter and share his solitude. 
The philosopher, weaving- his abstractions, often impresses 
the multitude with a sense of coldness, and seems to point 
the way to heights which are inaccessible. So that while 
Christ unites in himself all these functions, they are held 
in solution by his broad and universal humanity. He is 
not like some actor heralded by fame, and greeted with the 
applause of a fastidious audience. He enters the drama of 
life along with the tumultuous chorus, not distinguishable 
at first from the others, and thus in close contact with all 
sorts and conditions of men fulfills his mission, not as a 
tribal Messiah, but as the world's Redeemer. 

We cannot well overestimate the significance of this 
humiliation, especially when we remember that it never 
stripped him of his real divinity. In thus becoming a 
man of the people, he presents a much needed object 
lesson in regard to relative values, and stamps human life 
with a dignity which had never been dreamed of before. 
He proves that the begger may be a prince in disguise, that 
honest toil prosecuted in the right spirit is itself a patent of 
nobility, that humble service, so far from being little more 
than a modified form of disgrace and bondage, is life's 
crowning merit, and the only means of its full and harmo- 
nious development. Apocryphal legends have credited his 
earlier career with absurd and useless miracles. But he 
needed no trick of magic to transmute everything he 
touched into gold. He revealed the unsuspected glory of 
familiar affairs. The common things he did, never made 
him common. Bending over the unheroic tasks of youth, 

487 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

he kept his head among the stars. His pure soul supplied 
its own invisible pageantry, and no scion of the house of 
David ever so truly sat upon the throne, judging the tribes 
of Israel. 

And thus he was the first to discover the worth of the 
individual. Coming into a world which was held in the 
chains of a pitiless imperialism, his advent raised the toc- 
sin of liberty from the citadel of Mansoul, and earth began 
to date its years afresh from the solemn Anno Domini. 
The humblest listener to his words must have gone away 
haunted by a strange and inspiring vision of the possible 
grandeur of life, and filled with new ideas as to the method 
of reaching the goal. For Christ was no demagogue stir- 
ring up the baser passions of the reckless crowd. The 
rebellion which he leads is not primarily against injustice 
endured at the hands of others, but against the insidious 
evils which war within ourselves. Many of his friends 
were disappointed because he steadily refused to become a 
political agitator. But while he was by no means indif- 
ferent to anything affecting human happiness, his reform 
begins at the beginning. It is at once too radical and too 
comprehensive to exhaust its strength upon externals. 
The fountain must be pure, or it will be waste of time to 
meddle with the streams which flow from it. And, there- 
fore, Christ seeks, first of all, not a change of conditions 
but a regeneration of character. 

It requires an aristocrat of the right sort to establish the 
best democracy. The true friend of the people will guide 
their half -formed desires into the proper channel, and stir 

488 



BY REV. WILLIAM T. HERRIDGE. 

up that " divine discontent" which, in spite of the ravages 
made by sin, still gives proof of our essential nobility. 
Though Christ consorted with the poorest specimens of 
mankind, and embraced them all in the arms of his great 
benevolence, there can be no doubt that he was the ideal 
gentleman, and that he sought to develop in others that 
mingled humility and self-respect which results in spiritual 
freedom. He exchanges the government of outward com- 
mands and prohibitions for that of inward principles. He 
rivets our gaze upon the soul's achievements, and clearly 
distinguishes between what a man has and what he is. To 
his thought, no one should clamor for " rights " unless he 
is at the same time prepared to recognize responsibilities. 
For rights, whatever their precise mode of emergence, have 
their original basis in the moral nature of man, who is 
framed for the discharge of duties and wins his rights in 
no other way than by honest effort to fulfill them. 

Thus the keynote of Christ's Democracy is unselfish- 
ness. We must learn by experience the meaning of his 
strange paradox that he who loses his life shall really find 
it. Egotism can never exhaust the whole content of man- 
hood. He whose. aims are confined within the narrow circle 
of personal interests maybe called " successful " by some 
beholders, but he is drying up his vitality at the root. It 
is only through sympathetic participation in the world's 
changeful drama that we attain our own highest individual- 
ity. Christ was perfectly conscious of the alternative pre- 
sented before Him. He might have had kingly pomp in the 
city of Jerusalem instead of social ostracism and cruel 

489 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

persecution and shocking death. He deliberately chose 
that career of self-forgetfulness which has made his name 
immortal, and every one who aspires to serve his genera- 
tion well must follow in his train. 

Every important problem of life is in its last analysis a 
purely ethical one. Unless we cleanse the fountain, it will 
do little good to meddle with the streams which flow from 
it. The true reform is at once more radical and more com- 
prehensive than some seem to imagine. It behooves us to 
study the social and economic conditions of our time, and 
to weigh the merits of every theory offered as a panacea 
for existing evils. But many of them are vitiated by funda- 
mental fallacies. The earthly Paradise is not a machine- 
like realm which changes men into automata, but a realm 
throughout which justice and love are so diffused that they 
necessitate the gradual elimination of everything which op- 
poses them. Christian Democracy is not set upon over- 
throwing the powers that be simply for the sake of doing 
so. But it will raise the question whether the powers that 
be are the powers that ought to be, and, if they are not, 
the awakened conscience of mankind must yet sweep away 
whatever prevents freedom of self-government according 
to the will of God. 

We are often told that this is a transitional epoch in his- 
tory ; but is not every epoch transitional ? There is far 
more to fear from stagnation than from earnest thought 
on the practical matters which confront us. Each genera- 
tion has its special opportunity which cannot be discerned 
without intelligent reading of the signs of the times. But 

490 



BY REV. WILLIAM T. HERRIDGE. 

the most advanced opinion has discovered no new Gospel 
for mankind. The democracy which aspires to perma- 
nence, instead of repeating the specious sophism that, all 
men are equal, must seek rather to give each one a fair 
chance to develop his own life in beneficent contact with 
the lives of others. Whatever it has to say in regard to 
the readjustment of economic relationships, it must not 
demand the entire abolition of property, because the best 
property that anyone can have is himself. It must not hide 
behind abstractions, since the final issue lies not with ma- 
terials but with human souls. The cry of our day, "Back 
to Christ ! " if it is to have any adequate meaning, must be 
followed by another cry, "Forward to Christ!" to the 
Christ who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and 
whose laws, fearlessly applied and followed, will answer 
the questions and inspire the hopes and guide the footsteps 
of modern civilization.* 



* The topic of this Article by Dr. Herridge is in accord with pages 
106, Jesus' sympathy with the poor; 108, his leadership; 261, 262, the rela- 
tion of Jesus to the political world; also page Jfi9 in Professor Fisher's 
Article, which follows. — Author. 




491 




CHAPTER EIGHT. 

Seed=Like Character 
Of His Teaching and Work. 

By Rev. George P. Fisher, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Yale University. 

<&& — -©ds- — •£©» 

ESUS described the nature and influence of his 
teaching under the symbol of a sower, who went 
forth to sow. His repeated use of the same figure 
shows how true an image he felt it to be of the 
whole work in which he was engaged. He compares him- 
self, in relation to the kingdom which he was founding, to 
a man who " should cast seed into the ground, and should 
sleep and rise, night and day " : that is, should leave the 
seed to take care of itself, — "and the seed should spring 
and grow up, he knoweth not how." " For," it is added, 
" the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself " : that is to say, 
the seed, when dropped in the soil, shoots forth by a power 
within itself , "first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
full corn in the ear." Once more, he compared his king- 
dom to a grain of mustard seed, the most minute of all 
seeds, but which grows into a tree whose branches give 
shelter to the birds of the air. The parable of the leaven 
contains, under another symbol, an idea as to the character 

[Book XI.] 492 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

and progress of the Gospel, closely akin. That idea may 
be expressed as follows : — 

" This work which I am doing now may seem insignif- 
icant ; it fills no space in the eyes of men ; its immediate 
effect is small ; but there abides in it a living imperishable 
power, the measure of which time will reveal in a degree 
beyond all present anticipation. It will be a gradual ef- 
fect ; gradual in the heart and mind of the individual, and 
in society." 

This germinal quality belonged, as Jesus declared, even 
to his death. Shortly before his death, he said — (I quote 
from the Revised Version): " Except a grain of wheat fall 
into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it 
die, it beareth much fruit." A harvest should spring out of 
the sepulcher. 

I wish now to bring forward some illustrations of the 
seed-like, the seminal, character of the teaching and the 
work of Jesus. In so broad a field, it is only glimpses that 
we can hope to gain. 



ONE striking fact respecting Christ is that he wrote 
nothing. He left no writings to serve as an enduring 
record of his doctrine. In this respect he contented 
himself with scattering seed along his daily path. The 
same thing is true, to be sure, of the noblest of the Gentile 
teachers, Socrates. But Socrates did not aspire to be the 
founder even of a school ; much less to be the author and 
head of a spiritual kingdom, destined to spread over the 

493 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

earth. Jesus, on the other hand, not only claimed for his 
doctrine a divine sanction, but he set about the work of 
founding a new community, into which was eventually to 
be gathered the race of mankind. He came to bear wit- 
ness to the truth ; the progress of his cause was to be 
wholly dependent on the willing reception of the truth. 
Every other means of advancing his cause, he abjured. 
How sublime, and yet how strange, then, was the con- 
fidence which he felt in the power of what he taught to 
perpetuate itself. The oral utterance of it was enough. 
There was no need that he should write it down ; no need 
to lay it up in- manuscripts, like the Koran, to be preserved 
and transmitted as a sacred treasure by appointed guard- 
ians. 



'TTjNOTHER fact pertinent to the subject is, that Jesus 
k V left the separation of Christianity from the Jewish 
religion, to be effected, not by formal decree, but by 
the silent energy of the truth. 

Few things are more remarkable in the history of reli- 
gion than the broad distinction between Christianity and 
Judaism, effected however, without any repudiation of the 
parent on the part of the child. The religion of a nation 
was converted into a religion for mankind. A religion 
abounding in forms and ceremonials was exalted into a 
religion of the spirit, in which rites are few and simple, 
and quite subordinate. 

This great transition did not take place in an instant. 

494 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

The ferment which it occasioned extends through the apos- 
tolic age to the end of the first century. The final result 
was slowly reached : yet that result Christ had prepared 
when he said that nothing which goeth into the mouth de- 
fileth a man ; that he was the Lord of the Sabbath ; that 
one stood there among them, who was greater than the 
temple ; that God is a Spirit and calls for spiritual worship ; 
that blessedness springs out of tempers of heart, meekness, 
purity, and the like ; that nothing is requisite for salvation 
but faith in him. When he said these things, he sowed 
seed that could not fail in time to supplant the Old Testa- 
ment system. This effect, be it observed, did not follow 
from teaching alone, or chiefly. The death of Jesus was a 
prime condition on which the result depended. The cross 
superseded the sacrifice of the altar. The higher, heavenly 
life into which he entered, as soon as its meaning was dis- 
cerned, must needs give a spiritual and universal character 
to religion. It broke down the wall of partition between Jew 
and Gentile. Hence it was on the occasion when the Greeks 
sought an interview with him, that he uttered the mem- 
orable saying ■ " Except a grain of wheat fall into the 
ground, it abideth alone." But the perception of what his 
death involved, in this relation, was gradual. Upon the 
apostles even, the light slowly dawned. By degrees they 
recalled his words, and saw what they contained. How, 
indeed, could so fundamental a change in religion, a change 
intelligent and rational in its very nature, come to pass, in 
any other way ? In our Bibles, the Old Testament and the 
New are bound up together. They stand in friendly alli- 

495 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ance. The New is not the antagonist of the Old ; yet the 
points of difference and of contrast are not less striking than 
the points of agreement. What power was stored up in the 
simple teaching of Jesus — when his death had opened up 
its meaning — that a transformation so marvelous should 
grow out of them. 

'TESUS framed no organization for his followers. He 
J established no polity for the order and discipline of 
the church. His allusions to the church as an exter- 
nal body are very few in number. We might have ex- 
pected that if he did not put his doctrines and precepts into 
a permanent written form, he would at least guard against 
disintegration on the one hand, and despotism on the other, 
by defining somewhat in detail a form of church polity. 
History bears ample witness to the force that lies in organ- 
ization. Founders of the famous monastic orders in the 
church of Rome, of fraternities like the order of the Jesuits, 
and the authors of great religious movements like Metho- 
dism within the Protestant lines, have well understood the 
value of a compact discipline. It is felt that the highest 
force is attained when a host can be combined to move as 
one man. But in this matter also, Jesus manifested a like 
serene confidence, — noble carelessness, one is tempted to 
call it, — as in regard to the preservation and dissemination 
of truth. He impressed upon his disciples the fraternal re- 
lation in which they stood to one another, and the obligation 
of mutual care and service and self-sacrifice growing out of 
it. He taught them that they had but one Lord and Master, 

496 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

and that they were all brethren. He told them that he 
should be first among them who made himself the servant 
of all. And he made this teaching impressive by his own 
daily example. He made them feel that purity and kind- 
ness should reign among them. In this way he sowed the 
seed out of which forms of polity and rules of ecclesiastical 
intercourse might naturally spring up. He left it for time 
to unfold these germs, to develop types of polity suited to 
the varying circumstances of his followers in different ages 
and countries. He trusted to the force of the truth which 
he planted in the minds of those who heard him and to the 
impressions made on their hearts, to regulate the details of 
government in the church and to beat down or undermine 
whatever institutions might arise at war with the genius of 
the Gospel. 

The same remarkable forbearance he exercised in respect 
to the seasons and rites of worship. In answer to a request 
he gave a single, brief form of prayer. He composed no 
liturgy. He said nothing about the buildings in which his 
followers were to assemble for worship ; nothing about the 
method, but much in regard to the spirit, of their devotions. 
Out of the seed which he scattered have sprung up, either 
by normal development, or as an excrescence or corruption, 
all the fabrics of polity which have ever existed in the 
church, from the most imposing hierarchy, to the simplest 
forms of Christian association. Out of them have sprung 
the litanies and the hymns, the lofty cathedrals, and the 
meeting houses of the plainest structure, and the countless 
instruments and expressions of Christian devotion. 

497 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

eHIST did not reduce his teaching to a systematic or 
scientific form. If he was not to write down the 
truth which he had to communicate, it would be natural to 
expect that he would formulate it, — that is, give it a pre- 
cise, logical, coherent statement. It might naturally be 
expected that he would lay down philosophical premises as 
a basis for his theology, and provide concise and accurate 
definitions for the purpose of keeping out error. The 
Jewish rabbis whose copious teaching was orally transmit- 
ted, afforded an example of definite prosaic instruction. 
But from allthis kind of work Christ constantly abstained. 
He taught in parables. He presented religious truth in the 
moulds of the imagination. He drew illustrations from 
objects and scenes familiar to the eye. He uttered pithy 
sayings, often in a figurative style. He took no special 
pains to qualify his doctrine in order to guard against mis- 
interpretation. The truth that he taught was seed-truth. 
From it have grown up the different systems of Christian 
theology, the creeds and catechisms, which have appeared 
from age to age in the church. Leaders in thought, like 
Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Edwards, have 
labored to extract the precise content of his teaching, and 
to arrange it in a systematic form. In human systems, as 
in the company of the professed followers of Christ, tares 
will mingle with the wheat, but all that is true and valu- 
able, and abiding in Christian theology has been derived 
from the germs of truth which Christ left in the memory of 
his disciples. 

498 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 



fa 



HRIST did not undertake to determine the constitution 
V^_ of civil government, to delineate the ideal state. 
The subject is one that belongs in the domain of ethics. It 
has a most important bearing on human welfare. Yet he 
left it untouched. He recognized human government as 
having a divine sanction. He inculcated, by precept and 
example, the obligation to obey the magistrate unless his 
decrees clash with the laws of God. But what particular 
form government should take, whether it should be re- 
public or monarchy or aristocracy, — the rule of one, of the 
many, or of the few ; how the functions of government 
should be divided and distributed ; how far the jurisdiction 
of the state should extend, and where it should terminate : 
on these and kindred questions, he was silent. The reli- 
gious and ethical truth which he taught, by entering into 
the minds and hearts of men, has leavened the political life 
of nations. It has gone far towards determining the views 
of men concerning the true design of government, and the 
proper bounds of its authority. It has modified essentially 
the character of legislation. It has made political action 
more just and more humane. But all this effect is the prod- 
uct, not of any direct enactment, but of the slow opera- 
tion of the moral and religious truth which he deposited in 
human souls. 

CVEN with respect to the conduct of individuals and to 

I social relations, the instruction given by Christ is 

far from covering the ground of practical conduct. 

He made no attempt to abolish by a decree many an un- 

* 499 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

righteous custom and institution. He did not seek to define 
the relation between servant and employer ; nor, at a time 
when slavery was universal, did he issue an edict of eman- 
cipation.. He refused to pronounce a verdict in the case of 
one who complained that he had been defrauded by his 
brother. " Who made me," he said, "a judge or a divider 
over you ? " But if he was thus reserved as to giving ex- 
plicit law for practical conduct, there was no want of defi- 
niteness and earnestness in setting forth the principles by 
which men are bound to be actuated in all the relations of 
life. The tempers of feeling which man should cherish 
towards his neighbor, be that neighbor a kinsman or a 
foreigner or an enemy, are most impressively described. 
The golden rule is given for the curbing of inordinate self- 
love. An appeal is made to the example of God in his deal- 
ings with sinful men as a motive to mercy and forbearance. 
No effort is spared in commending the spirit of truth and 
the spirit of love. The value of the soul ; the sacredness 
that belongs to the humblest man, even to the little child ; 
the guilt incurred by the practice of injustice and cruelty ; 
the sin of selfishness, are insisted on with all urgency. The 
spirit that shone forth from his life was in keeping with 
his words. In this truth and in the life in which it was 
embodied, are contained the seed of that advancement of 
mankind in righteousness and benevolence which has taken 
place since the beginning of the Christian era. One iniqui- 
tous institution after another has been uprooted by the force 
of Christian truth. Fraud and injustice have found an in- 
cessant rebuke in the conscience of men who have been en- 

500 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

lightened by Christian teaching. Kindness to the poor, to 
the friendless and the ignorant, to enemies even, has re- 
ceived a constant stimulus from words that fell from the 
lips of Jesus and from the narratives of his conduct, and, 
above all, from the pathetic record of his sufferings and 
death. Charity, in every sense of the term, has acquired a 
prevalence of which the world, before Christ came into it, 
had no experience. 

THE energy that belongs to the seed has enabled it to 
burst through a crust of perverted doctrine and of 
burdensome ceremony, which for ages had been gathering 
over it. Religion in the middle ages was burdened with 
notions and with rites some of which had been caught up 
by the church in its passage through ancient heathenism, 
but most of which were due to a revival of Old Testament 
ideas and usages, a return to the point of view of the earlier 
and obsolete dispensation. This was the prevailing char- 
acter of mediaeval Christianity ; but underneath the rubbish 
of mistaken doctrine and oppressive ceremonies was the 
living seed of the true Gospel. The struggle of the truth to 
burst through the integuments that were bound around it, 
is discerned from time to time along the course of many 
centuries. The Waldenses in Southern Europe, the Friends 
of God in the Low Countries, Wycliffe, Huss, and Savona- 
rola, are a few signs among many, which betray the pres- 
ence of a power imprisoned, but striving, in a dim light, to 
shake off its fetters. At length the Reformation came. 

501 



OUR E-LDER BROTHER. 

The seed long hidden from view came forth in luxuriant 
freshness and vigor. 

I MIGHT speak also of the power of the Gospel, of the seed 
sown by Christ — to subvert forms of civil polity of long 
continuance and to create widespread commotion in the 
world at large. Jesus came not to bring peace but a sword. 
The ideas which the Gospel has introduced, stir the minds 
of men with a new consciousness of personal rights, with 
new aspirations, and a deep discontent. The result has 
been civil revolutions involving a struggle for liberty and 
equality. There may enter into these movements a large 
alloy of unwholesome passion. Disorder, violence, even 
anarchy, may be the immediate consequence. But in the 
civil and social convulsions which have taken place during 
the Christian ages, or which may now be witnessed or 
threatened, there is plainly to be discerned the energetic 
action of that truth which Christ sowed on the earth, by his 
teaching, — but not by that alone but by his life, and yet 
more by the great testimony to the worth and equality of 
men, given by his death, for the world of mankind. 

IF we inquire into the secret of the incalculable power 
exerted by Christ, we shall find that, as regards his 
teaching, it resides largely in this radical or fundamental 
character of the truth which he uttered. It was all seed- 
truth. It unveiled man to himself. It brought home to 
him the ideal of his own nature. It revealed to the individ- 

502 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

ual his relation to his fellow men — to the race of which he 
is a member. It poured light upon human nature, human 
obligation, and human destiny, by revealing God in his 
perfection to the soul. It set before the eyes of all, the 
learned and the ignorant, the high and the low, a worthy 
goal to pursue and a goal that all might hope to attain. 

This method, ill-adapted as it might seem to so great an 
end as he had in view, proved itself to be most effectual. 
He spent his strength largely in training a little band of 
chosen disciples. He wrote no book. The book in which 
he wrote was their hearts and minds. He stamped upon 
their souls living, indelible impressions. He made each of 
them a center of power for the propagation of the influences 
which he had brought into the world. Hence, although at 
his death the results of his teaching appeared small — a little 
company of intimate followers, a few hundred simple 
people who believed in him — nevertheless, in this infant 
church there existed a power adequate to the ultimate 
conquest of the world. 

Yet these explanations do not suffice. It was not the 
seed alone, or chiefly — if by seed we mean instruction 
simply — to which the effect is due. That which made the 
seed so fruitful was the Sower, — what he was, what he did, 
what he suffered. Above all, his death, — not regarded 
as the seal given to a martyr's testimony and teaching, 
although it had this character also, but his death for the 
reconciliation of the world to God, — his death as the ground 
of forgiveness, and the spring of hope and peace for the 
sinful heart, — this it was in the early ages of Christianity, 

503 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

this it has been in all ages, which has lain back of his teach- 
ing, as the condition of his quickening power. This is not 
to subtract anything from the inherent worth and latent 
efficacy of his words. It is simply to remind you again, 
where the power of Christianity ultimately resides. It is 
in the Redeemer himself, dying, and rising, a victor over 
death ; thus abolishing death and bringing life and immor- 
tality to light. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men with 
me." When thus drawn, the treasures that are imbedded 
in his teaching are discerned and appreciated, by the disci- 
ple ; and the world opens its eyes to the precious contents 
of that teaching. 



NOT to go farther in enumerating the products of the 
teaching and work of Christ, has not enough been said 
to impress us with the conviction that in him there 
dwelt the wisdom of God ? Take the most cursory glance 
at the progress of his kingdom. The downfall of ancient 
paganism with all the oracles, and altars and fanes ; the 
conversion of the Roman Empire to the Christian faith ; 
the conversion of the Germanic nations by whom the 
dominion of Rome was overthrown ; the spread of the 
Gospel in every continent and among the islands of the sea ; 
Christianity, outliving the rise and fall of kingdoms, the 
mutations of ecclesiastical polity and of theological sys- 
tems ; the transforming influence of Christianity upon leg- 
islation, literature, art, domestic and social intercourse ; 
the building up of numberless hospitals and schools wher- 

504 



BY PROFESSOR G. P. FISHER. 

ever Christianity has taken root — to attempt merely to 
name the multiform effects of Christianity, even the effects 
of a general character without descending to minor partic- 
ulars, would be to present a confused and crowded picture ■. 
the material is too vast to be compassed in any brief de- 
lineation. Now go back to the origin of all this : go back 
in imagination to some synagogue or hillside of Galilee, 
and behold the youthful teacher, untrained in the lore of 
any school, brought up in the house of a village carpenter 
— the youthful teacher from whose discourse and way-side 
conversation so vast an effect has proceeded ; go back to 
that day when, after so short a ministry, detested and de- 
spised by the ruling forces in society, forsaken by the people 
who had drawn some comfort from his words, betrayed and 
deserted by his followers, he hung upon the cross, the 
Roman gibbet, between the two thieves : yet the labors and 
teaching of the apostles, and the New Testament scriptures, 
and the labors and teaching of all Christian people since, 
with whatever has given a distinctive character to Chris- 
tendom, may be traced back to Jesus the Christ, who as a 
sower went forth to sow. 



505 



CHAPTER NINE. 

The Master, trie Message 

" I am the Truth." 

By Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D. 
President of Rochester Theological Seminary. 



■£.>■ V^: &g i<^» 




HEIST is the truth, and the whole truth of God ; 
and apart from him no complete or perfect truth 
exists or is attainable. Truth is not an ab- 
straction, but a person. God is truth, and 
truth is God. Why do two and two make four ? Why are 
all the radii of a circle equal to each other ? Because these 
statements represent eternal facts in the nature of God. 
Why is moral law unchangeable ? Why is vice condem- 
nable ? Because God is holy, and these propositions are 
reflections and revelations of his essential being. What 
we call separate truths are only partial manifestations of 
the God whose nature is truth. A given truth in mathe- 
matics or in morals is incompletely seen, and just so far is 
falsely seen, until it is seen as related to God, from whom 
it sprang. The scattered lights of truths are comprehensi- 
ble only when they are regarded as parts of one whole, and 
as proceeding from one original and eternal source of truth 
and righteousness. 

[Book XI.] 506 



BY DR. A. H. STRONG. 

And here we see the relation of truth to Christ. As 
God the Father is the source of truth, so Christ the Son is 
the revealer of it. So no man hath seen God at any time : 
the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, 
he hath declared him. Christ is the truth in manifestation, 
even as God is the truth manifested. Separate statements 
of truth are like the separate lights at the corners of the 
streets ; they are but partial manifestations of Christ, the 
all-encircling current of truth ; God himself is the dynamo, 
the truth that otherwise would be hid, but which now 
reveals itself through the omnipresent activity of Christ. 
Christ, then, is the truth, and the only truth, because he is 
the only revealer of God. In him the whole physical and 
mental and spiritual universe " consists," or holds together, 
even as he is the creative power through which it was fash- 
ioned, and the ultimate end for which it was made. 

So we cannot limit the teachings of Christ to Christen- 
dom. He is " the light that lighteth every man," Jew or 
Gentile, heathen or Christian. Even before Christ came in 
the flesh, every ray of conscience or aspiration that ever 
illuminated mankind proceeded from him, though "the 
light shined in the midst of darkness, and the darkness 
comprehended it not." Special revelation brings us in con- 
tact with the personal source of truth, and so opens our 
eyes to see the living essence of truth. In Christ's holy life, 
and in his sacrificial death, we see more clearly the mean- 
ing of the revelation in nature which went before. So, too, 
theology is not the only truth which Christ has been teach- 
ing the world. All truth in physics, psychology, ethics, 

507 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. . 

history, is a part of his revelation of God. When we say- 
that separate truths cannot be comprehended except in their 
relation to God, we virtually say that no single truth is 
rightly understood except in its relation to Christ, who is 
the only God with whom we have to do — God unveiled 
and active in the universe. We have reached no real, 
essential truth in science or religion, until we have found 
"the truth as it is in Jesus." And since this truth is a per- 
son, and is inseparable from the Teacher, we "take his 
yoke" upon us, in order that we may "learn of him." In 
the words of Robert Browning : 

" I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
All questions in the world and out of it, 
And hath so far advanced thee to be wise." 



IF all truth is a revelation of Christ, and there is no truth 
without him, then it follows, with the certainty of mathe- 
matical demonstration, that, other things being equal, 
only Christians can be the best teachers of the world in 
science, literature, philosophy, and art, as well as in religion. 
Not the moral law alone, but the laws of nature as well, 
can receive proper exposition only from those who see in 
them the habits of God and the methods of Christ. The 
natural and the spiritual are only parts of the one Kingdom 
over which Christ reigns. We must set forth not only 
Christ's relations to the church, but his relations to the uni- 
verse ; must show that he "upholds all things by the word 
of his power," and " fills all in all " — the universe in all its 

508 



BY DR. A. H. STRONG. 

parts, with all that it contains of reality and truth and life. 
It is the mission of Christianity then to educate the world — 
to influence and control all the springs and channels of 
human thought. And the church, the exponent of Chris- 
tianity, must make all truth her subject of instruction, 
simply in order that she may set forth the greatness and 
glory of Christ, the Lord of the Universe, and the living 
head of the church herself. 

Christianity must take possession of all the culture of 
the world, or she must utterly give up claim to be divine. 
She must appropriate and disseminate all knowledge, or she 
must confess that she is the child of ignorance and fanat- 
icism. She must conquer all good learning or she must 
herself be conquered. When the church fully recognizes 
that in order to bear witness to Christ it must bear witness 
to all truth, and that in order to bear witness to all truth it 
must bear witness to Christ, all danger will cease, either of 
an ignorant Christianity, or of an unspiritual education. 
The church can be delivered from ignorance only by remem- 
bering that Christ is the truth, and the church can be deliv- 
ered from unspirituality only by remembering that the 
truth is Christ. 

The progress of science and philosophy has by many 
Christian thinkers been regarded as diverting attention 
from the affairs of the soul, even if it did not directly antag- 
onize the Gospel. Sociology and reform in politics have 
been sometimes frowned upon by Christian preachers be- 
cause they were considered rivals of Christianity in the 
thoughts of men. The error and harmf ulness of such esti- 

509 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

mates is apparent : the dark and threatening form that has 
loomed up in the distance, and has rilled our hearts with 
fear as we have sailed over the stormy sea, may be only 
the form of Christ coming to us over the waves to rescue 
us. Christ and his truth are larger and more comprehen- 
sive than we have imagined, and the movements of human 
thought which agitate the world may be ways in which he 
goes forth, conquering and to conquer. 



THROUGH all our modern literature and life Christ is 
working, gradually making all things new. The 
manifold societies and organizations that are formed 
within the church, are only means of drawing out unused 
resources and of inaugurating new aggressions upon the 
kingdom of evil. And the great efforts outside the church 
to improve government, to right social wrongs, to diffuse 
the spirit of kindness between employers and employed, 
are many of them efforts in which Christ himself is the 
moving power, even though those moved by him are uncon- 
scious of his influence. All power in heaven and earth is 
even now given to Christ, and in view of these great civil 
and social movements, we are bound to lift up our hearts, 
because the day of our redemption draweth nigh. 

This larger view of Christ as comprehending all truth is 
greatly needed in order to prevent us from becoming illib- 
eral in our estimates of work done by Christians of other 
names, and even by those who have no connection with 
any Christian organization. All Christian denominations, 

510 



BY DR. A. H. STRONG. 

just so far as they preach Christ, are helping the cause of 
truth, and we rejoice in their work. 

One of the conditions of progress is freedom. Discus- 
sion elicits truth. Imperfect and even erroneous statement 
is often the germ from which truth is sifted and evolved. 
And though now and then we may hear that new and 
strange doctrine has been taught, let us not on that account 
alone condemn it — this is better than that Christian liberty 
should be unduly curtailed. Such things right themselves 
in time. Christ reigns, and he who is the truth will see to 
it that the kings of science shall be made to serve him, and 
all the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms 
of our God and of his Christ. 




511 



CHAPTER TEN. 

Not Law t>mt Love. 

By John S. Sewall, D.D., 
Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, Bangor Theological Seminary. 




HEN Pilate asked Jesus whether he was a king, 
Jesus replied, " My kingdom is not of this 
world." This was an idea strongly in contrast 
with anything Pilate knew or dreamed. To him, there was 
no kingdom but Rome, and no king but Caesar. To Jesus 
kingdom and kingship meant something else than the 
pageantry and glare of any earthly state. To Pilate a 
kingdom was a theater for ambition, a scepter of power, a 
victorious army, and obsequious provinces. The kingdom 
Jesus meant was not of this world. Its crown was a 
crown of thorns, its signs of royalty a reed, a purple robe, 
and a cross. Its armies would shed their blood not on 
battlefields, but at the stake, on the scaffold, in the 
dungeon. Its subjects, though few then, would finally 
become a great multitude which no man could number, 
of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues. 

It was to be a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly empire ; 
and therefore not gathered by conquest, not enlarged by 

[Book XL] 512 



BY PROFESSOR SEW ALL. 

force, not ruled by law. There were to be no liveried 
legions, no central throne, no royal pomp. Whatever it 
was to do in man or for man, whatever it was to be in his- 
tory, was to be accomplished by invisible influences, by 
the power of the Spirit working in the human mind. It 
was a strange experiment ; a sort of supernatural Utopia ; 
on earth, yet not earthly ; human, yet divine ; visible, yet 
spiritual ; temporal, yet eternal. 

THE citizens of this kingdom were not to be drawn from 
any one nation, but gathered from all. Never in 
any period of its history has it been confined to any one 
country or to any one people. It has chosen its subjects 
from every clime and upon every shore. Its first large 
conquest was on the day of Pentecost ; and tlu>» it took 
not the representatives of any one province alone, buu 
" Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the dwellers in 
Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and 
Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of 
Libya about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and prose- 
lytes, Cretes and Arabians " : they were all there, and the 
Spirit chose them for the first members of the new king- 
dom, as if to show that God is no respecter of persons, but 
in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteous- 
ness is accepted with him. Thus the Church first gathered 
in Jerusalem became a type of the future history of 
Christ's kingdom. 

What was the harmonizing power, which could thus 

513 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

fuse men into one great spiritual republic ; men, too, so 
diverse, in every possible condition of life and character ? 
Whatever it might be, it was a new principle to the world. 
It had never been witnessed before. Separate nations had 
often been gathered under one scepter, nations that were 
wholly unlike ; and, fettered together in the chains of one 
common conqueror, they had sometimes become lost in the 
great mass, had lost their identity and even their name. 
But it was not a harmony. It was not a union. Those 
discordant peoples were only put together and held together 
by force. The great Roman Empire had driven under its 
yoke such distant and different peoples as Greeks and 
Gauls, Syrians and Spaniards, Germans and Egyptians. 
But there was no common interest among them. There was 
no common sympathy. Greek still remained Greek, and 
Spaniard, Spaniard. They were not united, but manacled 
together by an iron despotism : and when Rome grew 
dissolute and decrepit, they dropped apart by their own 
incongruity. 

The world had often seen such artificial empires. But it 
had never dreamed of a bond that should bind together 
different nationalities, not with armies and fleets, not with 
deputies and laws, not even with the mutual ties of com- 
merce, and yet should bind them closely and intimately. In 
this the kingdom of Christ would be a paradox among the 
empires of this world. His subjects were to come from the 
east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down 
together in the kingdom of God. Members of many races, 
and citizens of many states, they were to find their chief 

514 



BY PROFESSOR SEW ALL. 

citizenship and their only real union here. This they have 
done, from the first century until now ; and the kingdom has 
been recruited with the picked men of all the continents and 
every age. All over the world nations that are ignorant of 
each others' language are holding converse in the common 
speech of heaven, and are united by a tie which supersedes 
the bounds of empire or party or sect. The Name which is 
above every name is the countersign that admits them to 
the great brotherhood of the redeemed. The kingdom is 
one, pervaded by one spirit, animated by one purpose, and 
loyal to one King. 

IF we look for the aim of this unique dominion, we shall 
find that it was not intended for political purposes, but 
was wholly spiritual. This would have seemed strange 
indeed to the Roman governor before whom Jesus was 
arraigned. It was as if the prisoner had said, <C I do not 
institute a grand pageant for elevating and deifying its 
earthly rulers. I do not receive kingship from it even my- 
self. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto." 
Not honor but service was to be the rule of fellowship. 
Jesus did not aim at the security of his disciples, but their 
reformation. He gathered them around him not to guard 
their lives, but to purify their hearts. And no project 
could have been more unlike the maxims of other empires, 
or more foreign to the spirit of human history. With an 
intractable race, which had never yet been successfully 
managed by all the forces of civil law and military power 
combined, Jesus attempted to put into operation a spiritual 

515 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

idea, which proposed to go farther and accomplish more 
than the most extravagant ambition had ever dreamed. To 
human thought, a hopeless chimera. Here is mankind 
sunk in paganism, ignorant and sensual ; its governments 
paralyzed by debauchery and conquest, wielding a power 
over their helpless subjects that was always despotic, and 
oftentimes ferocious, and yet unable to check the savage 
drift of society or even direct its course. Into the field of 
these disorders comes Jesus, with no sword or mace of 
authority, no royal aspect, no scepter or retinue or kingly 
parade. He proposes to reduce this chaos to order. He 
marshals no armies for the purpose ; he uses none of the 
grim weapons of human commanders ; he does not even 
enact a code of laws. And yet, with no instrumentalities, 
with no helpers, with not a soul on earth that understood 
him, this solitary Man sets up his kingdom alone ; a king- 
dom which shall gather its subjects from all other empires 
under the sun, and shall lift them up out of the mire of 
paganism and make them "new men in Christ Jesus," re- 
generated and redeemed. This was, as it has well been 
called by an American historian, " a colossal idea." 

^f TOW was this kingdom to be ruled? One might well 
11 have doubted beforehand whether a kingdom like 
this could be gathered and molded into one single 
harmony out of such a mob of diverse elements. But Jesus 
did it. One might have refused to believe that such an em- 
pire could be kept together without the machinery of gov- 
ernment, without army or navy, without kings or courts. 

516 



BY PROFESSOR SEWALL. 

But Jesus did that. One might ridicule as the greatest ab- 
surdity of all, the proposal to rule such a vast heterogeneous 
medley of men, not by law, but by love. Yet Jesus does that 
also. The cord which binds his kingdom together is not law, 
dictated by the Master and obeyed by the subject. It is love, 
mutually given and mutually accepted. And we can easily 
see how it is that he establishes such a subtle, invisible, 
intangible, and yet adamantine link between his kingdom 
and himself. He pours out upon us his love. He fills our 
hearts with it ; floods our homes with it ; lightens the daily 
burden with it ; sweetens the bitter cup with it ; makes the 
commonest drudgery and the hardest lot luminous with it. 
In return for his love he asks for ours. He himself inspires 
it within us. And if upon earthly objects, imperfect as they 
often are, the soul can fasten itself with such tenacity of 
passion, how much more can it love when it learns to love 
Christ, who stands so immeasurably beyond any ideal the 
imagination can picture ! How grand, how holy, how 
supreme love becomes, when it springs from a heart that 
has been redeemed, and when its object is no less than the 
radiant Jesus himself ! 

This is the secret of the kingdom, not law, but love ; per- 
sonal love to and from a personal Saviour. This is the 
power which is making conquest of the world. It is this 
that unites all Christians, however unlike, into one great 
fellowship of the saints. It is this that inspires to Christian 
heroism and self-devotion. It is this that lifts the soul into 
higher and higher reaches of spiritual life, and at last into 
heaven. 

517 



BOOK TWELVE. 

<m~J£"$& 



The Voice and the Life. 



Contributed Chapters. 

-^4=®*^ 



John's Voice and. Christ's Life. Chapter i. Page 519. 

By Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S.T.D., L.H.D., LL.D., 

Bishop of Central New York. 

Trie Transfiguration. Chapter 2. Page 532. 

By Edward Abbott, D.D., 

Rector of St. James, Cambridge, and Editor Literary World, Boston. 

Trie Door of Salvation. Chapter 3. Page 538. 

By C. H. Parkhurst, D.D., New York City. 

Our Lord. Jesus Christ. Chapter 4. Page 542. 

By the Evangelist Dwight L. Moody. 

Nly Personal Friend. Chapter 5. Page 545. 

By the Evangelist H. M. Wharton, D.D., Baltimore. 

Our Sympathizing Friend. Chapter g. Page 548. 

By Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn. 

Love as a Clock^Weight. Chapter 7. Page 552. 

By A. H. Currier, D.D., 

Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, Oberlin College. 

Trie Name Above Every Name, chapters, page 559. 
By F. A. Noble, D.D., Pastor Union Park Church, Chicago. 

Christ Our Authority. Chapter 9. Page 566. 

By Daniel Dorchester, Ph.D., 

Pastor of Christ M. E. Church, Pittsburg, and late Professor of English 

Literature, Boston University. 

Christ in the Old Testament. Chapter 10. Page 574. 

By Alexander McKenzie, D.D., 

Pastor First Congregational Church, Cambridge. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

John's Voice and. Christ's Life 

By Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, D.D., LL.D., 

Bishop of Central New York. 



«Mf$^ 




H ATEVER our place or calling, whatever faculty 
we were born with and whatever education 
and experience have done for it, everywhere, 
from first to last, the chief business of each of us is to grow 
into the best that each can be. The hour when that is 
found out, seen, and realized, is the grand hour in any life. 
We call it commonly the formation of character. Character 
never forms itself. It is assisted, influenced, quickened, 
and fashioned, from beyond ourselves. In all natural con- 
ditions the children of men are twofold, individual and 
social. Declare as you will that you are your " own man," 
you belong to the race. The tie to other people, the depend- 
ence upon them, is not an accidental or occasional or ex- 
ternal thing, sometimes added on upon the original con- 
stitution and sometimes not. It is inborn, essential, uni- 
versal. A human life alone on a tropical island, with 
ample nourishment at hand for the body, would shrink 
into a savage abortion. We speak, inaccurately, of " self- 
[Book xii.] 519 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

made men." Whatever the quality of the workmanship 
or the product, there are no such men. Men differ 
otherwise, — in the manner and the degree and the oppor- 
tunity with which they choose, appropriate, and assimilate 
those materials, or forces, that enter into character and 
build it, as light and air and the juices of the earth unbidden 
build the body or the tree. But in our intellectual and 
spiritual growth alike this mutual influence is law. While 
we make ourselves we make one another, and are made. 
The responsibility is tremendous, and the judgment is sure. 
s On this solemn and yet joyful plan of God, he has set the 
unity and mutual relationship of his world-wide family. 
With it and out of it comes the moral no less than the polit- 
ical economy, the ethical half of the Gospel, the tender 
blessedness of sympathy, the glory of sacrifice, and the 
brotherhood of the church. By the individualistic theo- 
ries of Hobbes and Rousseau, which a few frigid specula- 
tors are now trying to revive, these gracious fruits of a 
Christian civilization would be as impossible as a garden 
on an iceberg. The Bible sees the social principle working, 
proclaims it over and over, and warns us of the wretched 
ruin wrought always and everywhere by its violation. 
"Cain, where is thy brother ? Thy hand is red with thy 
brother's blood." It was just as clear to St. Paul the Apos- 
tle of Christ that "no man liveth to himself," or " dieth," 
as it was to one of the two great Greek minds of antiquity, 
Aristotle, that man apart from his fellows is but half a 
man, — that "one man is no man." From Eden to the 
American Republic the three social types in which the com- 

520 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

mon human stock throws itself out in history, in widening 
circles, are the household, the state or commonwealth, and 
the church : that is, the family, the nation, and the king- 
dom of humanity, or the brotherhood of men under the 
fatherhood of God. So we must learn by others' voices, 
" Take heed how ye hear ; " -and we live by others' lives, 
"members one of another." 

When John says he is a Voice, he speaks under that 
same law. He is contrasting himself most humbly with 
the Son of Man and Son of God coming after him. " I am 
not that Christ, not the bridegroom, not worthy to loose 
the latchet of his sandals, not the Second Adam regenerat- 
ing and restoring the lost life of mankind." This is the 
more striking because of the real grandeur, purity, and 
beauty of John's manhood. Begotten and born of the best 
blood of his time, kindred human-wise to Jesus himself, 
son of a consecrated, priestly father and — as reformers 
have so often been — of a lofty-minded mother, having his 
strength nurtured in the city of the Great King and hard- 
ened in the wilderness, he comes out of that rough seminary 
to prepare a way and a people for the new Dayspring from 
on high, to lighten the nations. The Master gives him his 
place : "What went ye out into the wilderness for to see ? 
A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. 
Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women 
there hath not risen a greater than John the baptizer." On 
the river bank the Voice calls "repent," summons a false 
and frivolous society to the mightier Reaper " whose fan is 
in his hand," sifting out chaff from wheat and casting it 

521 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

into the fire, bidding an unclean nation to come and be 
washed in Jordan. That the men and women of luxury 
and vanity may not misunderstand him, his leathern girdle 
and camel's hair tunic symbolize his sincerity. Dried 
locusts of the desert and honey got by climbing the rocks 
witness that there is a life for man which is not lived "by 
bread alone." For such a manliness the wrath and sword 
of an adulterous queen and king have no terrors. "It is 
not lawful for thee to have her," is the sentence of the 
Voice. The alarm is in the palace, at the guilty feast. Ten 
months in the castle dungeon at Machserus ; then the heads- 
man ; and the Voice ceases. It is no wonder that for al- 
most two thousand years the church has honored the 
martyr who was before Stephen, and that twice every year 
she reconfirms herself by his testimony "constantly to 
speak the truth, boldly rebuke sin, or patiently suffer for 
the truth's sake." She remembers and still hears the 
"Voice." 

But great and lasting as this power is, there is another 
greater and more enduring. It is not in any voice, — any 
sound that is heard, any language that is spoken, any words 
that are written, however eloquent, or brilliant, or even 
true the speech may be. Discourse may be one of its signs 
or expressions, but only one. The book, treatise, lesson, 
poem, biography, fiction, all that is in the literature of all 
lands in all its departments, all that is stored in libraries, 
all that flies from the press, whatever the tongue utters, 
tongue of orator, prophet, preacher, pleader, exhorter, 
singer, is but the manifold instrument of this other power ; 

522 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

not its substance, or its secret, or its source. Not through 
any of the senses, by sight or hearing, primarily or chiefly, 
does it manifest its presence, or uncover its hidden beauty, 
or demonstrate its reality. We know it by another faculty. 
We believe in it on other evidence. We feel it by an invis- 
ible but irresistible conviction. Our Lord declares it of 
himself again and again that he has it, and he alone in its 
fullness and perfection. Take three of these affirmations : 
" I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly ; " " They will not come to me that 
they might have life ; " " Because I live ye shall live also." 



'7T.MONG late proposals, under new scientific terms, there 
i\ is a study called Comparative Theology. It goes on 
the idea that as there have been known in different 
periods and peoples several system of religion, or worship, 
ten of them, at least, with unequal mixtures of fact and 
superstition, the truth respecting God and our relations 
with him is to be found out by comparing these several re- 
ligions with one another, striking a balance of credibility or 
rational probability between them, and so accepting Chris- 
tianity or Mahometanism or Brahminism or Buddhism, or 
the Greek mythology, as the result might be. What stands 
fatally in the way of that kind of splitting differences, in 
order to reach a faith, is that one of these religions differs 
from all the others radically, and cannot be classed among 
them, in this, — that in the faith of Jesus Christ alone does 
the Author or Founder or Revealer go on beyond the descrip- 

523 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

tion of the true life, or the picture of it, or the motives to 
It, or the appeal for it, to give, in his own person, the power 
of living it : that is, from being a voice coming from without 
to impart the life created within. Here the Word made flesh, 
Emmanuel, living out his divinity, and inwardly received as 
the Life-Giver, stands solitary, singular, and unapproach- 
able. Almost everybody has some notion of what is meant 
by what are called the "evidences of Christianity." So far 
as a life of observation and reflection may warrant it, I ques- 
tion whether there is any of these so decisive and so conclu- 
sive as this marvelous supremacy of a spiritual fact, that 
Christ in his divine humanity imparts his own life to his 
followers by an unseen but ready communication, of which 
the name is faith. Without this, a mere assent of the mind 
to every article of the creed will fail to bring any soul into 
a real and hearty discipleship to the Saviour, or stamp his 
likeness upon it, or "save it with his salvation." Where 
this comes, creed and sacrament and obedience will come 
as freely as you trust and seek and save the friend you love. 
Christ takes to himself, it is true, other titles than this 
of the Giver of Life ; they are names that he shares with 
other benefactors, with human reformers and earthly lead- 
ers ; but, remember, they can never share this one with 
him. Each of those names has its own significance, be- 
cause each points to one or another of his gracious helps to 
us, — ministers to our weak will, or sinking heart, or falter- 
ing feet. So he is a Teacher, the Teacher of the world's 
wisest teachers, but he is more than that. For what teach- 
ing gives is knowledge, and knowledge, with its largest 

524 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

gains, never comforts a mourner, or forgives a penitent, or 
answers a prayer, or braces the conscience for temptation. 
He too has a "voice" like John, but within it is what no 
tongue of John could utter. "Never man spake like this 
man." His speech itself is surcharged and vitalized with a 
breath that is divine. " The very words that I speak unto 
you, they are spirit, and they are life." Teaching educates 
the understanding ; but there are unholy understandings in 
the highest seats of learning, and education of itself sancti- 
fies no saint. Again Christ, in things human, is our Pat- 
tern ; but even there, the copying of an example never 
creates the loftier styles of character— magnanimity, or aspi- 
ration, or enthusiasm, or fervent devotion. Even in the finer 
arts imitation is not inspiration. No "life" passes between 
the pencil and the canvas, the chisel and the marble. Again, 
Christ is the Shepherd, but more ; for while the pastor may 
give his life for thn sheep, he cannot breathe it into them ; 
sheep and shepherd are of two unlike orders. He is the 
" Door." The door of the fold lets in and guards the flock. 
But he who seeks and gathers the lost in all the mountains 
and valleys of the earth regenerates them by his life into 
sons and daughters of God. Once he is called the " Captain " 
of the hosts he saves ; but no military commander was ever 
to his army what the Conqueror on the cross is to every 
sinner for whom his blood was shed. Or if that blood was 
only a ransom paid for our safety centuries ago, the Church 
would praise its Deliverer still, but the atonement would 
not to be at-one-ment, and the Eucharist would not be a 
thanksgiving that " He lives in us, and we in him." 

525 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

These are outlines of Christian doctrine. They mark 
plainly the impassable partition between man at his best 
and the Man who is the Son of God, — not apart in affection, 
or purpose, or sympathy, or the spiritual heart, but in their 
nature, in power, in the two orders, that which comes from 
above — the heavenly — and that which is of human capacity 
in earthen vessels. It is the difference which many plausi- 
ble dispositions and popular ambitions of these times try 
impatiently to hide or forget : between John and Jesus, — 
between him who was greatest of prophets and him whom 
all the prophets foretold, and now adore ; between the 
" Voice " speaking, and then silent, and the " Eternal Life " 
given ; between the Saviour worshiped and us, the saved, 
who so faintly worship and so feebly follow him. 



OASS, then, from this contrast between two persons 
'X standing together before our eyes on the heights, at 
the birth of our Christian faith and the beginning 
of the Church, down to the common level, the everyday 
world, where we ourselves have to work our salvation out. 
Every doctrine of Christ fails to fulfill its purpose, and is 
like a foreign curiosity or a dream, unless it touches our 
motives, changes our conduct, and makes us, — us who are 
sons and daughters of God, — less selfish, less sordid and 
frivolous and more like our Lord ; — less of the earth 
and more of Heaven, less in danger of wreck and ruin and 
eternal death, and more sure of eternal life. We are far 
enough in moral courage from John ; and farther still in 

526 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

spiritual power from the Son of Man, who by his living and 
cross taketh away the sin of the world : and yet we shall 
mistake completely the whole object of his coming into the 
world, the meaning of his Gospel, and what the Kingdom 
of Heaven comes into the world to do, unless we see that 
we ourselves, just in the measure of our capacity, are to 
share his life, and live it out like him. It was wonderful 
in him ; it will be less wonderful in us, but not less actual 
or less acceptable. He took it and brought it directly 
among men, from his Father in Heaven ; so he said and 
proved. We can take it as directly from him walking at 
our side, a workman tempted as we are, hungering, pray- 
ing, dying, as we do. This is why he says, ''Come unto 
Me." Not come away from your everyday work into a 
separate profession, or from society into solitude, or from 
human interests into fine sentiments, but from your low life 
to a higher one, from a shallow life to a deeper one, from 
calculating and plotting for yourself to royal and free will 
service to people least privileged and least agreeable. You 
say you are weak ; you are : this is the energy, in heart 
and will, to make you strong. " They that wait upon the 
Lord shall renew their strength." You say you are of no 
account ; this makes you kindred with the nobility of the 
race, one in dignity and honor and inheritance with the 
royal family whose title will outlast all the crests, escutch- 
eons, blue-books and monuments. You say you have tried 
and failed, which is very likely : did you try of your own 
trying, or with a conscious trust and prayer toward him in 
whom your life is hid,— and if so are you sure you really 

527 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

failed ? Observe precisely what he wants us to believe 
when he says : " Ye will not come to me that ye might 
have life ; " "I am come that ye might have life, and have 
it more abundantly ;" ■" The glory which thou gavest unto 
me I have given unto them;" "As thou, Father, art in 
me, and I in them, that the world may believe that thou 
hast sent me." " To as many as received him, to them gave 
he power," whoever they are, leading citizens, servants, 
merchants and their clerks, scholars, housewives, young 
women of no calling, children untaught in any school — to 
them gives he power, " to become the sons " and daughters 
"of God." Precisely that is St. Paul's grand summing up 
where he turns from his inspired demonstration of the 
central doctrine of the faith to the practical and per- 
sonal appeal: "I beseech you therefore, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service." 

The point is, that as we get so we give ; as we take in, 
so we send out. It is the life more than the voice, Christ's 
gift more than John's gift, that tells, and quickens, and 
saves. Not so much what we say, still less what we have, 
not even what we do, is the greatest thing before God. 
Character is supreme, and nothing else is eternal. Those 
other things, the havings, the sayings, the doings, how 
perishable they are ! the richest havings, the brightest say- 
ings, the most conspicuous doings. The men that have, and 
the men that speak, and the men that act, have their sev- 
eral places, honors, reputations, and memorials. There is 

528 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

another proof of what is everlasting ; another criterion of 
immortality. 

But that is not all. There is a very blessed comfort here 
for the majority, — those whom our Lord sought out first, 
treated most tenderly, and among whom he dwelt, — those 
who never have a great deal, or speak in commanding voices, 
or accomplish memorable enterprises, not rich, not very 
gifted, not thought to be very successful. The great possi- 
bility for them all is the life they can live. The property, 
the wealth, within their reach is character. The genius 
they are gifted with, whether in huts or mansions, is the 
genius of self-denying and therefore lovable goodness. 
Their success is the success of those who humble themselves 
and are exalted, who lift a cross to find it lifts them, of him 
who died poor that the world through him might be rich. 



IT has been answered : this is only mysticism ; you take 
us away from the solid, tangible, hard-fact world into 
a realm of mystery. When you tell us of the voice, 
speaking, articulate sounds striking on the sense of hearing 
and sending their message to the brain, that we understand ; 
that burden of the prophet our science verifies. But this 
life in us which was not our life, — an unseen gift from an 
unseen Christ recreating us and making us over, strengthen- 
ing us and comforting us, the image of the heavenly formed 
by faith in a heart that was earthly before, — "He in us 
and we in him," — that is mystery; you bring us not a 
revelation but a riddle. 

529 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Unbelief makes then its humiliating confession. Can it 
be, and is it so acknowledged, that a materialistic age, 
commercial competition, and the vanity of knowledge, have 
drifted us so far from our noblest heritage that the heavens 
have shut down, — suns and stars eclipsed by the lamps that 
we have lighted ? Has the second witness in the threefold 
order of our nature, the mind, silenced and smitten blind 
the first, which is the spirit ? Born out of one mystery and 
dying into another, knowing as you do that no observer or 
discoverer pretends to have penetrated the secret of the 
beginning of that "life which now is," in anything that 
ever lived, — standing on the mystery of an unsupported 
world, looking up into the million fold mysteries of the 
night sky, stumbling at every step over five times more 
mysteries than you have senses, — dare you make what you 
understand to be the compass and limit of your possession 
or your power ? 

Tell yourself what makes you love your friend, or your 
friend love you, why you forgive your child, how you admire 
magnanimity or pity an orphan, or how aspiration lifts 
you above the brute, or who persuaded you that the face of 
the Virgin Mother is beautiful, or that honor is better than 
shame. No, the saddest and meanest of all economies is to 
be sparing and grudging of your faith. Be sure of more 
than you can see, and thankful for more than you can com- 
prehend. Welcome the spiritual vision, and let the inter- 
pretation come when it will. Very likely it will come, 
when you live up to it. Encourage the larger confidence. 
Rejoice in the heights where no foot can climb, and glories 

530 



BY REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 

that eye hath not seen. Hearken to the voice of one crying 
in the wilderness, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand " ; but remember that the kingdom of heaven on 
the earth came when he came who is more than the Way, 
higher than the Truth, who is the Life. God grant you not 
to be of that far-off company hiding their faces at the most 
pathetic of all the sorrowful sentences that fell from the 
lips of the Lord of love, — " Ye will not come to me that ye 
might have life ! " 




531 



CHAPTER TWO. 

The Tra.nsfigvira.tion, 

By the Rev. Edward Abbott, D.D., 

Rector of St. James, Cambridge. 



-lezyfytyot.- 



fa I HE Transfiguration was certainly a remarkable occur- 
4 I rence, and one full of deep spiritual meaning. It 
?l I takes its place along with the Nativity, the Epiph- 
any, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension as 
one of the great landmarks in our Saviour's earthly life. It 
is the subject of one of Raphael's greatest paintings, his last 
work, now in the Vatican at Rome, one of the greatest 
which the world contains, than which indeed scarcely any 
other painting is more celebrated. And there is an un- 
earthly aspect to it, a glory and a splendor not of this world, 
which lend to it a surpassing interest. 

The Transfiguration belongs, in a certain sort of way, out- 
side of our Lord's common earthly experiences. It showed 
him united with his heavenly glory, and surrounded with 
heavenly associations ; as he was before his Incarnation, or 
as he would be after. A supernatural and striking change 
took place in his personal appearance, both in his face and 
his clothing. The "form of God" began to shine through 
the "form of the servant," as alight shines through the 
thin wall of the porcelain vase. His face first broke out in 

[Book XII.] 532 



BY DR. EDWARD ABBOTT. 

a gleam as with the intense radiance of the sun, all the 
brighter against the darkness of the night which enveloped 
him. And then his flowing garments caught the trans- 
figuring light, and put on a whiteness and a luster in the 
deep shadows of that lonely mountain top, which found no 
fitter comparison than the glistening snow that clothed the 
higher slopes and peaks above them. It was a truly 
wonderful transformation, this change from the dull colors 
of the earthly humanity to the intense effulgence of the 
spiritual, the heavenly, and the divine. But all this was 
only the beginning of the Transfiguration, the portal so to 
speak of the Temple. 

One of the incidents that followed was the passing of a 
great cloud across the mountain, a cloud that brightened 
and glowed with the heavenly radiance that streamed 
from the Saviour's figure as it overshadowed his disciples ; 
a cloud whose strange, unearthly brightness was like one 
of those majestic piles of vapor which lift themselves far 
up in the heaven on a summer's day, and glow in the sun- 
light. Well might they be awed who entered into such a 
cloud as this, and found themselves enveloped by its glit- 
tering folds. And then out of that cloud there came a 
voice: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased, hear ye him." It was the same voice which had 
spoken, and the same utterance which had been made, at 
the Saviour's baptism. And so it was, that on this moun- 
tain top, on this Mount of Transfiguration, the Divine Wit- 
ness once more bore testimony to the Divine Son, and 
confirmed his mission and his ministry to men. 

533 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

ONE of the incidents of the Transfiguration was the ap- 
pearance of Moses and Elijah, carrying with it a cer- 
tain lesson. 

As a flash of lightning on a summer's night opens the 
dark world to sight, and then leaves it to be enveloped in 
oblivion again ; or as sometimes at sea the dense and 
impenetrable fog suddenly lifts for a moment, and reveals 
a ship under full sail or a towering iceberg, then quickly 
settling down again to leave everything as blank and vague 
as it was before ; so in the Transfiguration the coming of 
Moses and Elijah opens to us a sudden and momentary 
vision of human immortality. For an instant, the flash 
bursts, the fog lifts, the curtain is drawn aside, and we see 
two lives that have been known upon earth continuing 
their existence in another world. What we call death is 
not an end to life ; it is but a door to a life beyond, — a step 
higher out of mortal and material conditions into condi- 
tions immortal and immaterial. 

And Moses and Elijah were seen to be Moses and Elijah 
still. Immortality is not some vast, vague, all obliterating 
term of being, into which departed souls pass to be ab- 
sorbed as rivers lose themselves in the sea into which 
they empty. Immortality is only the projection of personal 
identity on into the other world ; the preservation of indi- 
viduality, in all its varieties of intellect, toil, and aptitude. 

What is the language of heaven ? What was the 
language of Moses and Elias ? Their spiritual bodies had 
minds within them which thought, and tongues and lips 

534 



BY DR. EDWARD ABBOTT. 

that uttered words. What vividness, what realism, does 
this circumstance give to the ideas we are to form of the 
heavenly world ! 

What those heavenly beings talked of with the Saviour 
were not heavenly things but earthly. They spoke of the 
decease which the Saviour should accomplish at Jerusa- 
lem. Their minds were full not of what was happening up 
above, but of what was happening down below. We are to 
think of the windows of heaven as standing open toward 
the earth, and of the heavenly spirits as looking down with 
intense interest on what is passing here. This is God's 
world, and there is the liveliest interest in heaven as to all 
the concerns of God's world. The great cloud of witnesses 
by which we are surrounded bend over us, as we strive 
against sin and bear up under disappointment and sorrow; 
we are in close, loving, heart-beating contact with those 
who have entered into the joy of their Lord. Let us not 
feel deserted. Heaven's eyes are all wide open, and 
heaven's ears are all unstopped, toward the earth, where 
God's great work of redemption is going on, and where the 
Saviour is steadily reaping the fruits of his sowing of sac- 
rifice and suffering. 

How real it all is — this meeting place of two worlds : 
this point on the Mount of Transfiguration, where for an 
instant we get a glimpse of the glory that shall be 
revealed. 



535 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

fyOR another lesson of the Transfiguration, I ask : Is not 
1 every Christian life more or less a transfiguration, as 
it comes into union and sympathy with the Divine Life ? 
Christ is in us, who is the light of men, shedding abroad 
light into the minds and hearts and lives and homes 
around us, — shining like the figure of our blessed Lord 
upon the mountain top in the darkness of the Galilean 
night. " Among whom ye shine as lights in the world," 
said the Saviour. To have Christ formed in us, the hope 
of glory, what is this but a transfiguration ? 

What are all the holy days in the Saviour's life but types 
and prophecies of our own advancement in the Christian 
life ; a Nativity, or a new birth into the kingdom of God ; 
an Epiphany, or the manifestation of our faith, by its 
confession, to the world ; a Transfiguration, or the shining 
forth of the True Light that is in us by the radiance of a 
regenerated character and a renovated life ; a Good Friday, 
or the crucifixion of self, and the daily death to sin ; an 
Easter, or Resurrection through the Power of God to the 
Life Eternal ; an Ascension, or the perpetual dwelling of 
the soul in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ? 

Think of that grand and lonely mountain in Galilee ; of 
the Saviour and the chosen three, as they toiled up the 
steep and ravined sides in the evening twilight to the 
destined place of prayer, the place which was itself to be 
transfigured with heavenly presences and glory : and of that 
still and hallowed midnight hour, of the irradiated face and 
glowing raiment of the Saviour, of the Heavenly Visitors 

536 



BY DR. EDWARD ABBOTT. 

in their companion splendor, and of the Voice that spoke 
out of the passing cloud — ''This is my beloved Son." 
Think how all these features, in a spiritual sense, may be 
repeated here with us, as we speak not of the decease 
which our blessed Lord is to accomplish, but of that which 
he has accomplished, and of the benefits wrought for us, 
of our own spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. It is this 
which lifts us to the mountain top of communion with him. 
It is this which opens to us glimpses of heavenly things, 
assurances of spiritual relation ; which prepares us to come 
down from the mount, to take new part in the work of life 
around us, in imitation of the self-sacrificing earthly life of 
our Transfigured and Transfiguring Lord. 




537 




CHAPTER THREE. 

The Door of Salvation. 

By Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D. 
Pastor of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York. 

^S>-^£^ 

ERE we do not want to be dogmatic. By which all 
that I mean is, that we do not want to practice 
any nice phrasing on so inexpressible a 
"^*— ^ matter or to be guilty of making the truth 
of Atonement seem small by affecting to make a little doc- 
trinal parcel of it, knotted with threads spun either from 
our inner consciousness or from the catechism. I venture 
to think that Calvary itself with the scene that transpired 
upon it is a fairer, truer, and more moving presentation of 
the doctrine of the Atonement than anything that anybody 
inspired or uninspired ever said about it. Naturally enough, 
and with rather a delicate instinct perhaps, we shrink from 
the cold, calculating, commercial view of the Atonement, 
wherein the sufferings of Christ are represented as thrown 
into one arm of the scales to balance the weight of human 
desert cast into the other. That is simple, and has there- 
fore a natural congeniality for minds who want to say the 
whole that is to be said, and think themselves able to, and 

[Book XII.] 538 



BY DR. C. H. PARKHURST. 

who make no scruple of constructing their Christian system 
quite as a carpenter would put up a building, by cutting up 
his joints and girders into convenient lengths, and framing 
them into each other in a way that would render it least 
possible that they would fall out of plumb. 

Criticising however that " steelyard " method of inter- 
preting the Atonement, is an entirely different thing from 
saying that the guilt of our sins, yours and mine, does not 
need in some way to be compensated for. The theory that 
if a man does wrong, all that is necessary in order to have 
the case made good is that he should repent of the wrong, 
is demoralizing, it would be fatal to the administration of 
civil government, and is just as certain to blur, in men's 
estimate, the dignity of the divine government. It cheapens 
holiness, and keeps iniquity in good spirits. It is a thought 
ingrained in the human mind, history through, that sin is 
stamped with a cost mark. The doctrine of sacrifice for 
sin has always kept pace with the keenness of the sense of 
sin. That is to say, it is universally the fact that the more 
conscious a man is of the wickedness of his evil doing, the 
clearer is his presentiment that requital of one kind or 
another must be made before the wrongdoer can be rein- 
stated and the thing made good. 

There is almost nothing that we need more to feel than 
that sin is bad, and the more feeling we do have of that, the 
clearer it becomes to us that sin needs to have some sort of 
notice taken of it, and that pain is its natural sequence. 
Now Atonement fits that fact ; I do not know how ; I 
have no particular desire to understand how. The matter 

539 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

is so great a one and the beginnings of it so deep and so far 
away, that thought at its best has probably never done 
more than graze its nearer edge. But there is the cross. 
Sin needs to have some notice taken of it, and sin has there 
had some notice taken of it. And by accepting as my 
Saviour the Lamb of God, who on the cross was made a 
sacrifice for sin, I become participant in the purposed bene- 
fits of that sacrifice. It becomes mine by my penitently 
making it mine. 

The particular theory a man may have as to the way by 
which Atonement becomes efficacious, has very little to do 
with it. We are saved not by our theory of the Atonement, 
but by the Atonement. Sometimes I have one theory of it, 
and sometimes I have another theory of it, and more com- 
monly I haven't any theory of it, but that does not inter- 
rupt its efficacy, any more than having no theory in regard 
to light prevents the daylight from coming in at my win- 
dows. " God so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." That obviates the neces- 
sity for any more philosophy than you happen to feel like 
employing upon it. The theologian who spends forty years 
trying to construe the cross and interpret the Atonement, is 
saved in no other, or wider, or profounder way than the 
little child-Christian is, who is sorry for her sins and trusts 
in the Christ who died for her. 

May it be a part of the daily peace of us, his disciples 
and believers, that our penitence for sin is so sincere, and 
our acceptance of him as a friend, so hearty and entire, 

540 



BY DR. C. H. PARKHURST. 

that we shall be kept from any kind of intellectual fret 
about the problems of the matter ; that we shall walk with 
a steadiness of step, begotten of confidence in his wisdom 
to guide and power to sustain ; and that we shall be able to 
go forward to the end and on into the world unseen, undis- 
mayed by any ill foreboding, comforted by his rod and 
staff, and hidden in the rock that has been cleft for us. 




541 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

Our Lord Jestis Christ. 

By the Evangelist D wight L. Moody. 




[wj OD first came down to create, then to save. To 
create, God had only to speak ; to redeem, he 
had to suffer. He made man by his breath ; he 
saved him by his blood." 

The Passover, Pentecost, and Feast of Tabernacles 
typify a completed redemption. 

The cities of refuge are a type of Christ, and their names 
are significant in that connection. Kadesh means holy, 
and our refuge is in the holy Jesus ; Shechem, a shoulder, 
and " the government is upon his shoulder " ; Hebron, 
fellowship, and believers are called into the fellowship of 
Christ Jesus our Lord ; Bezer, a fortification, for he is a 
stronghold to all them that trust in him ; Rainoth, high, 01 
exalted, " for him hath God exalted with his own right 
hand " ; Golan, joy, or exaltation, for in him all the saints 
are justified and shall glory. As the cities of refuge were 
so situated as to be accessible from every part of the land, 
so Christ is ever accessible to needy sinners. 

How many men and women who were doomed to a life 

[Book xn.] 54.3 



BY MR. D. L. MOODY. 

of poverty, monotony, and toil which almost amounts to 
slavery, have been translated by experience of the love of 
Christ out of darkness into wondrous light. How many 
men and women, themselves apparently lost and dragging 
others to ruin, have been arrested and converted and trans- 
figured by " the Sun of righteousness with healing in his 
wings." 

It is remarkable that Christ declares the need of an en- 
tire change of heart and nature to a man of the highest 
honor, an eminent teacher, and a sincere inquirer ; while 
he speaks the sublime truth, " God is a Spirit," to an igno- 
rant and abandoned woman. This woman was not inter- 
ested in the gospel, but she was interested in the water 
business ; so Christ spoke to her about that. 

Christ sends none empty away but those who are full of 
themselves. 

It will not take an anxious sinner long to meet an anx- 
ious Saviour. 

The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all 
sin. If I am sheltered behind the blood, there is no con- 
demnation for me. Wherever blood was upon the door 
post in Goshen, death passed over ; and a little child be- 
hind the blood was as safe as Moses. It is not " When I 
see how holy you are," but " When I see the blood." 

" In Christ's hand, — safety : | 

At his feet, — learning : 
At his side, — fellowship : 
Between his shoulders, — power : 
In his arms, — rest." 

543 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Christ said, " You take my life, and I will take your 
sins." 

God loves us in our sins, saves us from our sins, and 
washes us and clothes us with his own garment ; and then 
we are able to have communion with him. 

The people of God are marked (Lev. viii : 23) : The blood 
upon the ear, that a man may hear the voice of God ; the 
blood upon the hand, that a man may work for God. 

Rutherford speaks of the sweet burdensomeness of 
Christ's cross : it is such a burden as wings to a bird or 
sails to a ship, — it carries one forward to the desired haven. 

< < The light of heaven is the face of Jesus ; 
The joy of heaven is the presence of Jesus ; 
The melody of heaven is the name of Jesus ; 
The harmony of heaven is the praise of Jesus ; 
The theme of heaven is the work of Jesus ; 
The employment of heaven is the service of Jesus. 
The fullness of heaven is Jesus himself ; 
The duration of heaven is the eternity of Jesus.'' * 



* The Author has been desired by Mr. Moody to state that some 
paragraphs of this Article have also appeared in his < « Notes from my 
Bible," being quoted from writers unknown to him. 




544 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

My Personal Friend. 

By the Evangelist Rev. H. M. Wharton, D.D., Baltimore. 






(5pf N twenty-three years' service — through storm and sun- 
shine — Jesus has become to me a real Person, ever 
present and always helpful, who never forsakes 
me. 
If in loneliness of heart I have cried for him, he has 
been always within hearing and has hastened to my side. 
He has taught me to look to him to lay out my work for 
me, and to look to him for its accomplishment, — yielding 
myself into his hands as a willing instrument. Brought to 
the feet of Jesus, he has bidden me arise and go, — "I am 
with you even unto the end." He has been so constantly 
present by his Spirit, that what was once to me faith has 
now passed into the realm of knowledge. With Jesus him- 
self in my heart, his word on my lips, and his Spirit to 
give power to the word, I have no fear of failure or 
defeat. In my peculiar work, he has been my firm and 
helpful Friend. 

[book xii.] 545 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

In my own spiritual life I have found Jesus to be my Friend 
in the hour of temptation. If, in the peace and ecstasy of 
a changed heart and life, I have been sometimes overcon- 
fident and careless, Jesus has never left me. In my humilia- 
tion or spiritual disaster, I have seen my Lord following on, 
and watching my return. If I have stood like Mary, look- 
ing into the grave of my buried hopes, the Blessed One 
was standing near, waiting for me to look to him. With 
aching heart I have fallen on my knees before him, only 
to see his smile and hear his words of forgiveness. As 
my personal Friend, he has made it his business to 
watch over me in my weakness, to see that I walk safely, 
that I may stand at last victorious in the presence of the 
Father. 

Jesus, too, has been my personal Friend in business. 
Often in strange and unlooked-for ways, he has come to my 
help. Sometimes my morning mail has brought me the 
needful help for the day. In nothing has Jesus been more 
real to me than in taking away my cares and secular bur- 
dens. 

In all troubles, he has been to me my personal Friend : 
when I have stood at the grave to see the casket disappear 
with my heart's best treasure, or when I have suffered dis- 
appointment through those whom I had thought to be my 
friends, or when I have been misunderstood and wrongly 
accused, and when I have mourned that my love and my 
service are so poorly rendered to my Saviour ; in all my 
sorrows I have found the support of the Everlasting Arms, 
and that my griefs have been borne by my sympathizing, 

546 



BY DR. H. M. WHARTON. 

omnipotent, loving Friend, who knows them all and takes 
them upon himself. 

It cannot be long before I shall see him face to face, and 
tell him all my love, in return for his saving grace and 
loving care. 




547 




CHAPTER SIX. 

Our Sympathizing Friend. 

By Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn. 

HEBE is no place in which human sorrows are felt 
as they are felt in the heart of Jesus. No one 
knows human weakness as he knows it, or pities 
as he can pity. Every suffering of body is known to our 
sympathizing Lord, and every grief that makes the heart 
ache. Human pity is often worn out from over-use. It 
impatiently mutters, " Is that poor creature here again? I 
have helped him a dozen times already." Or it says : 
" That miserable fellow has taken to drink again, has he? 
I am done trying to save him. He makes himself a brute ; 
let him die like the brutes ! " Human pity often gives way 
just when it should stand the heaviest strain. 

Compassion dwells in the heart of Christ, as inexhausti- 
ble as the sunlight. Our tears hang heavier on that heart 
than the planets which his divine hand holds in their orbits ; 
our sighs are more audible to his ear than the blasts of to- 
day's wintry wind are to us. When we pray aright, we are 
reaching up and taking hold on that compassion. The peni- 
tent publican was laying hold of it when he cried out of 
[book xii.] 548 



BY DR. T. L. CUYLER. 

that broken heart, " Be merciful to me, a sinner !" It is 
his sublime pity that listens to our prayers and hears our 
cries, and grants us what we want. Therefore let us come 
boldly to the throne of grace and make our weakness, our 
guiltiness, and our griefs to be their own pleas to him who 
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. One of the 
most characteristic stories of Abraham Lincoln is that a 
poor soldier's wife came to the White House, with her infant 
in her arms, and asked admission to the President. She 
came to beg him to grant a pardon to her husband, who was 
under a military sentence. " Be sure and take the baby up 
with you," said the Irish porter at the White House door. 
At length the woman descended the stairway, weeping for 
joy; and the Irishman exclaimed, "Ah, mum, it was the 
baby that did it ! " 

So doth our weakness appeal to the compassionate heart 
of our Redeemer. There is no more exquisite description 
of him than in this touch : " He shall feed his flock like a 
shepherd ; he shall gather the lambs with his arm and 
carry them in his bosom ; he shall gently lead those that 
are with young." Such is our blessed Master's tender 
mercy to the weak. It is tender because it never breaks 
the bruised reed or quenches the feeblest spark. This 
world of ours contains vastly more weak things than strong 
things. Here and there towers a mountain pine or stalwart 
oak ; but the frail reeds and rushes are innumerable. Even 
in the Bible-gallery of characters how few. are strong ; yea, 
none but had some weakness. Abraham's tongue is once 
twisted to a falsehood ; the temper of Moses is not always 

549 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

proof against provocation ; Elijah loses heart under the 
juniper tree, and boastful Peter turns poltroon under the 
taunts of a servant-maid. But evermore there waits and 
watches over us that infinite compassion that knows what 
is in poor man, and remembereth that we are but dust. For 
our want-book he has an infinitely larger supply-book. The 
same sympathizing Jesus who raised the Jewish maiden 
from her bed of death, who rescued sinking Peter, and 
pitied a hungry multitude, and wept with the sisters of 
Bethany ere he raised a dead brother to life, is living yet. 
His love, as old Rutherford said, "hath neither brim nor 
bottom." 

THIS compassionate Jesus ought to be living also in the 
persons of those whom he makes his representatives. 
"Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of 
Christ." That law is love. This law of Christian sympa- 
thy works in two ways : it either helps our fellow creatures 
get rid of their burdens, or, if failing in that, it helps them 
to carry the load more lightly. We that are strong ought 
to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our- 
selves. Here, for example, is a strong, rich, well-manned 
church : some of its members are dying of dignity, and 
others are debilitated with indolence. Yonder is a feeble 
church in numbers and in money. Let the man who counts 
one in the strong church go where he can count ten in the 
weak church. If the compassionate Christ should come 
into some of our city churches, I suspect that he would 

550 



BY DR. T. L. CUYLER. 

order more than one rich, well-fed member off his damask 
cushion, and send him to work in some mission-school or 
struggling young enterprise. 

What does the Lord make some of his servants rich and 
strong for except that they may lend a helping hand to the 
weak ? I wish we knew the name of the Good Samaritan ; 
we might clap the word " Saint " to his name as soon as to 
Saint John or Saint Andrew. When he found the bleeding 
Jew by the roadside, he did not say, "You fool ! why did 
you come on this dangerous road alone and unarmed ?" 
He picks up the wounded sufferer, and when he reaches the 
khan he slips the shilling into the innkeeper's hands, and 
whispers in his ear, " If thou spendest more on him, when 
I come this way again I will repay thee." 

The early church was saturated with the compassionate 
spirit of their Lord. They fulfilled the "law of Christ." 
The only genuine successors of those apostles are the load- 
lifters. The second coming of Christ in these days must be 
in the persons of those who bear the burdens of the weak, 
condescend to men of low estate, and seek out and save the 
lost. One great need of the times is for rich people and cul- 
tured people to understand their duty and do it ; otherwise 
wealth and culture is a snare and a curse. Jesus Christ 
exerted his divine might and infinite love in bearing the 
load of man's sins and sorrows. Consecration means copy- 
ing the compassionate Christ. Power means debt — the debt 
we owe to the poor, the feeble, the sick, the ignorant, the 
fallen, the guilty, and the perishing. May God inspire us, 
and help us to pay that debt ! 

551 



CHAPTER SEVEN. 

Love as a. Clock> Weight. 

By A. H. Currier, D.D., Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, Oberlin College. 

^ £$,T2 ~ 



(^ HE old-fashioned eight day clocks, with swinging 
pendulums, are kept in motion by a slowly falling 
weight that requires to be wound up once a week ; 
the weight is the motive power that keeps the hands of the 
clock in regular movement. The motive power that secures 
a regular movement in unselfish living, is the personal love 
which every true disciple entertains toward the Master. 
This love, inspired by Christ in the hearts of his disciples, 
has been, throughout the ages, in all lands, the chief source 
of impulse to generous and Christlike deeds. 



Qj 



HI* BEAUTIFUL illustration of the love inspired by Jesus 
i\ is found in the story of Mary's anointing the head and 
feet of her Master, at the hour when his feet were 
hastening toward the cross. So costly was this offering of 
ointment of spikenard, that its value was equal to the wages 
of a laboring man in Bethany, for a whole year, or if given 
to the poor it would have fed as great a multitude as were 
satisfied through the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It 
[book xii.] 552 



BY PROFESSOR CURRIER. 

was enough for more than a score of anointings, yet she 
poured it out like water in princely liberality not only upon 
the head of Jesus but his feet. If she had been a queen 
with the revenues of a kingdom at command, she could 
scarcely have given more magnificent and expensive proof 
of her regard. To this she was impelled by her love ; eager, 
transporting love, which would fain express itself regard- 
less of cost, and under the impulse of which her sole con- 
cern was, how to do him fitting honor to whom she owed so 
much ; a love so grateful as not to permit her to reckon the 
cost of the offering, or, if she thought of it, it was with a 
feeling of joy that she could lavish it upon him who had 
awakened her spiritual nature, and who had brought back 
her brother to life. 

And concerning this gift, which some thought extrava- 
gant and wasteful, Jesus said that she had wrought a good 
work, although it was what some might call a mere gift of 
sentiment, a sentimental gift that expressed the love of the 
giver and was well pleasing to the recipient. The fra- 
grance of this ointment, diffused through the house and 
regaling the senses of the guests and attendants, imparted 
an additional and more exquisite delight to the occasion 
and converted what might have been only a common meal 
into a heavenly feast. All this did Mary of Bethany, not 
knowing that Jesus was about to die, and that his body 
would be laid in the sepulcher ere the perfume of her oint- 
ment would be gone from his locks. 



553 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

WHO then can believe that it was not equally pleasing 
to the Master, when Sally Thomas of Cornish, in the 
old Granite state, gave to the American Board between two 
and three hundred dollars, which represented her entire 
lifetime saving by domestic service at fifty cents a week ; 
this being the first legacy this mission enterprise ever 
received, and used by the Board in sending out their first 
missionaries. 

Nor is the name of Mary of Bethany, whose deed was to 
be held in everlasting remembrance wherever the Gospel is 
preached, a name more worthy of a memorial than that 
of Sarah Hosmer of Lowell, who supported herself by her 
needle, yet who, in her love for Christ and her desire to 
spread the knowledge of him in the earth, devoted her 
frugal earnings to educating six young men, who went 
forth to preach the Gospel in the Orient. 

Nor is her name more worthy of a memorial to be per- 
petuated throughout all ages than that of either one of a 
great number of noble, highly educated men and women, 
who have consecrated all the promise of their lives to pro- 
claim to far away nations the glory and the saving power 
of the cross ; gladly forsaking the delights of congenial 
society and high civilization, going forth 

' < For that dear Name 
Through every form of danger, death, and shame," 

in their uncalculating devotion to the Christ of their love, 
— so fulfilling his unfinished mission of love to mankind. 

554 



BY PROFESSOR CURRIER. 

r\0 we speak about gifts of sentiment ? Jesus Christ 

1/ believed in them and valued them. The seamless 

robe which he wore, may have been one of them. 

He once declared that " man shall not live by bread alone." 

Man in his highest nature is but a bundle of sentiments. 
He has mental and spiritual cravings which it is as impor- 
tant to minister unto as those of hunger, thirst, and cold. 
He has a mind eager for knowledge, aesthetic tastes that 
delight in beauty and refined enjoyments ; he needs schools, 
books, music, works of art, and flowers. He craves love 
and sympathy. He needs tokens of affection, the sweet 
endearments and discipline of family life. He has spiritual 
wants that thirst after the knowledge of God ; and his 
happiness and destiny depend upon his knowing God and 
his love. Man needs the Gospel, he needs the ministry of 
Jesus Christ. Yet this blessing is a gift of sentiment. 

Is it not as truly a good work, a proof of the disciples' 
love to their Master, to send flowers to gladden with their 
fragrance and beauty the hearts of the sick, as to send 
provisions to the hungry, and coal to the needy in days of 
frost ? It is like ointment poured out, if we send the Gos- 
pel good news to the spiritually destitute : it is as truly an 
act of love as if we sought to relieve famine. Whatever 
makes man morally better, this it is good to give him : it 
may be a church, it may be the opening of treasures of wis- 
dom and knowledge that give him a higher ideal of charac- 
ter and life, a wider outlook and nobler motives of conduct. 

What is needed is to do deeds for the love of Christ, 

555 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

that have a large personal element in them, that take time 
and loving thought, the best thought one has to give, to 
perform them. They imply friendship and solicitude for 
individual welfare, carrying the assurance of that affection 
which is the best thing this world can give, gladdening 
human existence and filling it with sweetness and joy. 

It is this personal service in spiritual ministration that 
is always upspringing in the heart that overflows with love 
to Christ, which is a perennial source of moral elevation to 
men. 



IT is one characteristic of the love which Jesus inspires in 
the hearts of his disciples that it is an increasing, absorb- 
ing love, which demands new ways for expressing relig- 
ious devotion ; it is an ardor of love that is sometimes im- 
patient with stereotyped forms. The glowing heart craves 
and invents for itself new methods for honoring its divine 
Lord. It is like the sudden breaking of a costly alabaster 
box that shocks cold blooded disciples at first, but it per- 
fumes the robes of the Church of God. 

This is illustrated by the great religious movements and 
new Christian enterprises of recent centuries. The rise 
and spread of Methodism, the origin and growth of Sunday 
schools, the modern missionary enterprises so vast and far 
reaching, the great religious revivals, the efforts for the 
better religious training of the young in social Christian 
service, the princely gifts for new schemes, the education 
of the children of the poor in kindergarten or industrial or 

556 



BY PROFESSOR CURRIER. 

manual training, and the new charities which have sprung 
into existence in such variety amid dense populations, — 
all illustrate the inventive quickness of Christian love 
to devise new methods of sacrifice and religious activity to 
meet the exigencies of the times, and more effectively 
accomplish the work our Lord has given us to do. 

Christian love, too, has the courage of its convictions, 
and an intrepid creative energy, so needful in encountering 
adverse criticism and opposition. It is an epoch-making 
force, that affords the best proof of the divine character 
of our Christian faith and love, and its undecaying vigor 
in the lapse of centuries. 



IT is, too, one of the characteristics of the love that Christ 
inspires in the bosoms of his disciples, that other hearts 
catch the fire. The knowledge of their deeds of love is 
spread abroad in the earth, and kept alive through long 
stretches of time, to inspire men to unselfish deeds and 
more generous sacrifices in honor of our Lord. They are 
indissolubly associated with the everlasting Gospel, to 
share its glory and triumph as it advances through the 
world. 

There is no motive so mighty as love to Christ, when it 
is felt in all its force. Thence comes the heavenly fire by 
which our sacrifices are kindled. If our lives are scant of 
good, it is because our hearts are scant of love : but if we 
surrender ourselves to the full sway of this divine love, it 
will make us great hearted, ill-content with narrow schemes 

557 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

for good, so that we shall constantly widen the range of 
our effort, and venture upon what love prompts and Provi- 
dence directs and favors. Nor is there any other meed of 
earthly fame so great as the approval of Him who said, 
" She hath wrought a good work, she hath done what she 
could. " 




558 



CHAPTER EIGHT. 

The Name Above Every Name. 

By Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D., Chicago. 
eft^ 



(*^ I HE pages of our human history are luminous with 
4 1 names of the first magnitude. It is impossible to 
^Ll— go back and follow down on the lines of religious 
experience and life ; of poetry, and oratory and art ; of 
statesmanship ; of war and conquest ; of ethics and philos- 
ophy ; of science, and discovery, and inventions ; of great 
moral reforms, and not encounter, all along the way and in 
all these departments, names marvelously rich in sugges- 
tions of devotion, and knowledge, and skill, and foresight, 
and efficient energy. Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, 
Moses, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Paul, Julius Caesar, Augus- 
tine, Charlemagne, Columbus, Raphael, Cromwell, Shake- 
speare, Copernicus, Newton, Washington, Wilberforce, 
Darwin, Livingstone, leap at once into mind ; and we bow 
in reverence at thought of the exceptional abilities these 
men possessed, or the magnificent ends they cherished, or 
the measureless volumes of influence they set in motion. 
But while these names are great, there is one other Name 
[book xii.] 559 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

which is greater. While these names will shine on resplen- 
dent from century to century in the firmament of the 
world's large and heroic souls, there is one other Name 
whose shining is with a light unborrowed, original, and 
eternal. Before that Name all other names grow dim, as 
the stars, though still burning on with their unquenched 
fires, lose their brightness and retreat into obscurity when 
the sun mounts the sky, and fills all the wide space with 
the radiance of his beams. In moral purity, in spiritual in- 
sight, in capacity to reveal men to themselves, and to dis- 
close God to the world, in wisdom, in wealth of love, in 
power to cleanse defiled hearts and advance souls in right- 
eousness, and mould society after an ideal standard, Jesus of 
Nazareth stands out by himself alone. These others were 
human ; Jesus was also human — perfectly human ; but 
he was likewise Divine. 



IN a sense, and in a measure beyond all others, Jesus Christ 
has brought God home to the apprehension of human 
souls. To know Christ is to know God. " If ye had known 
me, ye should have known my Father also." He was Em- 
manuel. 

Inquirers put their questions to him and he answered 
them. He told them of God, his nature, his character, 
his thought, his wish. He told them of the human soul, 
its value, its possibilities, its destiny. He told them of the 
great moral law under which every human life is cast ; 
what it requires, how it may be broken, and what will 

560 



BY DR. F. A. NOBLE. 

come of it when men deliberately disregard duty and 
smother conscience and go on just as though there were no 
distinction of right and wrong and no such word as 
"ought" in the universe. He told them of a Divine love 
brooding over mankind, so rich, and full, and free that no- 
body need be without experience of it. He spoke the 
clearest, loftiest word which has ever had voicing among 
men on all the verities of God and the soul. He brought 
life and immortality to light. 

< < The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, 
The light of the world is Jesus ; 
Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in, 
The light of the world is Jesus." 

Other men open the way to Jesus. They unfold his 
truth. They guide erring, or stumbling, or reluctant feet 
along the path which leads to the acknowledgment of his 
claims and submission to his will. They catch up the loving 
invitation, they repeat the great and precious promises, they 
utter the warnings of Jesus, and they do this over and over 
again. They try to give to souls some suitable understand- 
ing of their need of him, and of his willingness, and more 
than willingness, and ability to help them. This is their 
merit, and it is a large merit. On this earth men do no 
grander service than practically acquainting their fellows 
with Jesus Christ. But when men have succeeded in open- 
ing the way to Jesus, and getting other men up face to face 
with him, so that they see him, and see themselves in his 
light, and realize what he can do for them, and what they 
need to have him do for them, their services are exhausted. 

561 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 



It is Jesus, and Jesus alone, who saves, or can save. It is 
Jesus alone who has the power to save. 



JESUS CHRIST has been the inspiration of the great 
advances which have been made in the last eighteen 
hundred years, whereby mankind has been blessed. He 
has supplied the motive power under which individuals and 
communities have registered moral conquests. We praise 
the Apostles and the Fathers for what they accomplished. 
Jesus was behind them ; they did their work in his name. 
We see a certain good which was secured by Constantine. 
Jesus was behind him ; and it was in the sign of the cross 
that he marched to victory. We exalt Charlemagne, and 
are never weary of acknowledging the indebtedness of the 
nations of Western Europe to his organizing skill and re- 
markable foresight. Jesus was behind him ; and he got his 
ideas and ideals largely from the men who were in close 
touch with their Divine Lord. We honor the Mediaeval 
Church for the high service it rendered to mankind in sub- 
duing rude foresters and soldiers to the faith, and promot- 
ing learning and order through the long, dismal period 
which has come to be known as the Dark Ages. Jesus was 
behind the church and in the church, the Leader of the 
leaders, the Light in their minds, and the Strength in their 
hearts. We magnify the Reformation, and cherish with a 
peculiar tenderness the memories of the stalwart souls who 
precipitated this contest with ecclesiastical wrongs and cor- 
ruptions, and fought the contest through to a successful 

5G2 



BY DR. F. A. NOBLE. 

issue. Jesus was behind Martin Luther and all his brave 
associates ; and the struggles and tears and sacrifices and 
agonies of the mighty upheavals which marked the dawn 
of a new era for liberty and learning and righteousness in 
the world were only so many tokens of his presence in their 
resolute hearts. We pay such tributes as are found in lofty 
orations, and exquisite poems, and the cunning chisel of the 
sculptor, and the painter's brush, and proud monuments to 
the little band of Pilgrims, and the kindred bands of Puri- 
tans whose opinions and actions gave such a new turn to 
affairs in England, and scored so deep a story into the pages 
of early American history, and imparted such an impulse 
to American life. Jesus was behind these illustrious exiles, 
and they came hither in his name, to do his will, and to 
plant homes and churches and schools, and to live a life 
which should be to his glory. 

THE most positive, most forceful, most determinative 
of the influences set in motion since the morning 
of the resurrection of the crucified Christ is this which 
has emanated from the Lord of light and life. Jesus 
Christ has made and he has unmade governments. He has 
set up kings and he has overturned kings. He has cut 
channels for the free flowing of the currents of civiliza- 
tion. He has forced man to think. He has moulded institu- 
tions. He has entered into laws and customs. He has 
given a new turn to art. It is in virtue of what Jesus has 
done for human thought and human life, and human as- 

S63 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

piration, and the elevation of humanity in intelligence and 
virtue that we have our wonderful achievements in science. 
Science often assumes to be infidel and atheistic, but 
science, so long as it consents to be scientific, can never 
throw off its obligations to Jesus Christ. 

Were these specifications to be multiplied until they 
should include all Christian projects, the amelioration of 
laws, the planting and endowing of schools, the found- 
ing of hospitals and asylums, the promotion of the cause 
of temperance, improvement in prison discipline, the 
change in attitude towards the poor and wretched and 
wandering, it would be seen that present activity in these 
beneficent directions is due to the same influences and mo- 
tives which have wrought so helpfully in the past. The 
Christian faith, in which the foundations of the great pub- 
lic institutions of Europe and America were laid, is the 
propulsive energy under which society is still moving for- 
ward to the realization of the noblest ends and aims. The 
source of all these upward movements is Jesus. The light, 
the cheer, the blessings which go into the wretched hearts 
and homes of perverse men and degraded men, go because 
there is a Christ behind to press them forward. The in- 
stitutions which are rising into place and power all up and 
down the lands, and which have so much promise in them 
for the future of the race, are but expressions of the life of 
the ever-living and ever-active Son of God. 

Is it not therefore — indeed can it be other than — a 
blessed thing to acknowledge this Name which is above 
every name, and to come into hearty loyalty to the love 

564 



BY DR. F. A. NOBLE. 

and gracious power for which it stands ? Earth has many 
great names, and many precious names, and we love to 
cherish them. But the Name of Jesus is the one name 
which sets forth the highest reaches of spiritual knowledge, 
and gives assurance of deliverance from sin, and pledges 
Divine help in realizing fitness for the heavenly life. In 
Jesus we have God reconciling the world unto himself. 




565 




CHAPTER NINE. 

Christ Our Authority. 

By Daniel Dorchester, Ph.D., 

Pastor of Christ M. E. Church, Pittsburg, and late Professor of 

English Literature, Boston University. 

<S>"^^S> 

E are taught very early to respect authority. It 
is, perhaps, the most important principle of 
education and training. First our parents and 
schoolmasters rule us ; then in the various departments of 
commercial, political, and intellectual life, the wise man 
rules us, or one that we think to be wise. It matters not 
how democratic we may be, and how firmly we may believe 
that all men know more than one man, that the voice of the 
people rather than the voice of the king is the voice of 
God, — the need for some authority is clearly recognized. 
Every science, every branch of learning, every art, has its 
master spirits, its laws and standards ; every stock ex- 
change, every financial center, has its great names ; every 
business house, every organization, has its presiding genius ; 
every society its leaders, every home its head ; even the 
fashion of dress, capricious as it is, rules with despotic 
power. 

[book xii.] 56G 



BY PROFESSOR DORCHESTER. 

Still greater is the need for authority in spiritual matters, 
and there was never such a demand for it as in this skep- 
tical, restless, critical age of ours. Everything is being 
tested to-day. The more the race progresses, the more does 
it insist upon truth and purity. It asks for a pure politics that 
shall reflect without taint or bias the will of the people ; it 
requires that history shall be written without any distortion 
by passion or ignorance ; the old histories are restudied and 
corrected in accordance with this modern requirement. All 
forms of religious faith, too, are being subjected to a process 
as searching and purifying as that employed in a blast 
furnace. The fire of criticism is 'seeking to drive out of 
religion whatever may be false ; we behold the sparks of 
error continually flying about the white light of truth. 
What am I to believe ? How much am I to believe ? Whom 
am I to believe ? These are questions that in a greater or 
less degree are agitating all minds. The soul that Jias 
never doubted does not really believe ; but the soul that 
continually doubts renders itself incapable of belief. We 
all doubt more or less ; like the dragon beneath the foot of 
St. George, doubt may be overcome, but we feel it writhe. 
We, however, crave certainty ; we are ill at ease so long as 
we doubt. The strongest of us, the clearest-headed, the 
most believing, finds himself unable to solve many prob- 
lems of life and destiny. 

Carlyle, with all his seer-like vision and confident dog- 
matism, in the agony of his soul cried out, " Oh, that I had 
faith : oh, that I had it ! " Darwin, with all his splendid 
researches into the mystery of life, spoke of himself as 

567 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

hopelessly perplexed in face of the vague possibilities of 
immortality ; and Huxley, tired with his mental struggles, 
said, that if he could find anyone who could wind up his 
nature like a clock, and guarantee that it should always act 
rightly, he would gladly give up his soul to such a beautiful 
custody and control. Now each of these men, to use Hux- 
ley's fine phrase, "is a thought- worn chieftain of the 
mind" ; yet each confesses his need of "one who speaks 
with authority," upon the great problems of the human soul. 
There is only one supreme authority for the soul that can 
stand a moment's examination, and that is Jesus Christ. 
Grant for the time being and throw aside in the Bible 
everything that any respectable critic of to-day claims to 
be spurious, yet there remains a nucleus of sayings and 
doings in the Gospels including some of Christ's statements 
about his own personality and power, that every scholar 
admits. Out of these simple elements alone, — without any 
aid from the rest of the Bible, without any aid from the 
Church, or any theological systems, — could be constructed 
a working theory of life and salvation that would satisfy 
the deepest needs of the soul. Apart from this Gospel story, 
there is no seat of authority in religion that is so universally 
satisfactory. 

•YESUS has been the light of the world for nineteen hun- 
I dred years ; millions have been energized and trans- 
formed by his life ; he has been water to the thirsty, 
food to the hungry, truth to the seeker, a way to the lost, 
and salvation to the sinful. Other men have charmed, but 

568 



BY PROFESSOR DORCHESTER. 

this Jesus has changed human nature ; other men have 
imparted messages from their minds, but Jesus has given 
us himself, the quickening of his own Spirit, the glow of 
his own spiritual vitality. 

Why were Peter and John so transformed ? The enemies 
of Jesus were so confounded, that they could Vouchsafe no 
other explanation than that these disciples " had been with 
Jesus." What was the secret of the marvelous change that 
took place in Paul's life ? He tells us that it was the power 
of his crucified Lord. From Paul to the present day there 
has been an apostolic succession, an innumerable multi- 
tude of witnesses that have told the same story. Look for 
a moment at the mountain peaks of this glorious suc- 
cession: — 

Augustine in the fourth century ; Gregory in the sixth ; 
Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth ; Francis of Assisi 
in the thirteenth ; Luther in the sixteenth ; Wesley in the 
eighteenth ; Frederic Denison Maurice in the nineteenth ; 
all bathed in the light that is " the life of men." 

Christianity is a unique effect in the history of the world 
and demands a sufficient explanation. If Christ is not the 
cause, who is ? By what process of reasoning, by what 
method of criticism, can he ever be eliminated from the 
moral consciousness of humanity ? There are persons in this 
world in whom we instinctively have confidence. Children 
naturally gravitate to some persons and shrink from others. 
Children of larger growth do not lose altogether these in- 
stincts ; there are those to whom we confide our dearest 
secrets ; there are those who impress us with having at- 

569 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

tained such a mastery in certain subjects, that we accept 
their judgment without question and act upon it. Jesus was 
such a person. How the multitudes hung upon his words, 
until the priests poisoned them against him ! How they 
poured out their griefs, confessed their sins, and laid bare the 
secrets of their hearts ! " Never man spake like this man." 

That was the universal testimony. That was the im- 
pression made from the first. We have the same impression 
from reading his words to-day. He does not argue or reason 
as other teachers do. Though meek and lowly, he simply 
asserts and declares what has been well termed "the 
mother-speech of religion." Truth in its fullness seems to 
be under his control and waiting for his voice to enter the 
world ; the reverberation of that voice is heard to-day in 
every enlightened conscience. 

There are those, too, in this weary world who rest us, 
who impart strength. In their presence the discords of the 
world die away, the doubts and troubles of life do not 
appear so formidable, our feverishness ceases, and we go 
from them cheered and strengthened. Jesus was such a 
person. He breathed around him the atmosphere of peace 
and love. Nothing could disturb his serenity. Neither 
abuse, nor betrayal, nor mockery, nor crucifixion, not all 
combined could break into his peace. His was the con- 
fidence that comes from perfect knowledge, the calm that 
springs from self-conquest and a conscious union with God. 

We feel, too, that the peace of Jesus is not the peace of 
innocence, the calm of a lake that has never been stirred 
by the storm ; it is not a mere endowment, but something 

570 



BY PROFESSOR DORCHESTER. 

that he has won, and won, too, against the same foes that 
plague our aspiring, troubled souls. He was tempted to be 
what all the people wanted him to be, a worldly Messiah ; 
but with all their hosannas sounding in his ears he turned 
away from that little capering devil of vanity that so often 
fascinates men and women, and chose the rugged glory 
of the cross with its larger, purer aims and visions. He 
drank the cup of bitterness that we taste ; he felt the 
agony that struggling, aspiring humanity everywhere feels 
over the great problems of life and destiny. He knew how 
profoundly and passionately men in all ages had asked : 
"Is there a God?" "Where is he?" " Is there a hereafter ?" 
"Is the grave a final separation?" These questions are 
the very Himalayas of human thought, they underlie all 
human welfare, all civilization. 

It was in the darkest hours of his life, when such ques- 
tions were pressed upon him most earnestly, that Jesus 
seems most sublimely sincere, most triumphant and im- 
pressive. Let us look in upon that last Supper. The 
soul of the Master is exceeding sorrowful. The shadow 
of the Cross falls upon that little company as the Master 
talks of his approaching death. The hearts of the dis- 
ciples are very heavy ; they had been strangely stirred by 
this Jesus ; their aspirations and hopes had been wonder- 
fully kindled, but now the bright dream of their life is fad- 
ing ; they feel that with his departure every certainty of 
the present and future is to slip away. Judas has gone out 
to betray him, and "it was dark." Jesus divines their 
thoughts and fears, and says consolingly : " Let not your 

571 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in me. 
In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not 
so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." 
" He recalls to their minds the common Jewish idea that 
there was another world, that those in glory there occupied 
different abodes, corresponding to their ranks." He con- 
firms whatever of truth there was in this idea ; he assures 
them, and through them every one in all the world, that 
such a glowing expectation will be met by an eternal 
reality. " If it were not so," he says, "I would have told 
you." Jesus was too sublimely candid and truthful to 
leave them chasing a pleasing delusion and at last be bitterly 
disappointed. He had sorrowfully rebuked their earthly 
expectations, would he not as strenuously have corrected 
their heavenly aspirations, if they had not been true ? 
Would Jesus have taught those disciples to love him, and 
held out to them the hope of following him into his 
Father's presence and receiving God's eternal favor, if 
such an expectation were not to be realized ? His very in- 
tegrity is involved in fulfilling such an expectation. The 
same is true of those hopes and aspirations his words beget 
in every reader. If whatever blossoms out of his words 
is not to fruit here or hereafter, he would have told us. 
The Christian consciousness feels, as James Smetham 
says, "This must be true. It is impossible that either fool or 
rascal could have invented the fourteenth chapter of John 
or the twelfth of Romans. They are honest to the bone." 

Jesus is the truth so far as it is essential to human sal- 
vation, and so far as it can be expressed in terms of human 

572 



BY PROFESSOR DORCHESTER. 

life. He is the one complete incarnation, the one perfect 
image of the truth. Just as the truth of physical science 
puts us into intelligent relation with the world of nature, 
just as the truth of history puts us into intelligent relation 
with the growth of civilization, so the truth as it is in Jesus 
puts us into intelligent relation with God and the spiritual 
universe. All opinions of God and of the spiritual world 
outside of Jesus are guesswork. Christ is the language 
by which God becomes known to us and by which we come 
to him ; Christ is the vernacular that needs no translation, 
being spoken freely in heaven and in earth. Whatever is 
essential for us to know, he knows with absolute certainty. 
He never hesitates, as all great and wise men do whose 
knowledge is incomplete, but he speaks with the assurance 
of one who stands under the full noon of truth and sees the 
utmost bound of reality. 

Thomas a Kempis in his "Imitation of Christ" has a 
beautiful paraphrase of this passage, " I am the way, the 
truth, and the life," that sets Christ's life in its proper re- 
lation : "Without the way thou canst not go, without the 
truth thou canst not know, without the life thou canst not 
live. lam the Way which thou oughtest to. follow; the 
Truth which thou oughtest to believe ; the Life which thou 
oughtest to hope for. I am the Way unchangeable ; the 
Truth infallible ; the Life everlasting. I am the Way alto- 
gether straight, the Truth supreme, the true Life, the blessed 
Life, the uncreated Life. If thou remain in my way, thou 
shalt know the Truth, and the Truth shall make thee free, 
and thou shalt lay hold of eternal life." 

573 



CHAPTER TEN. 

Christ in the Old Testament. 

Alexander McKenzie, D.D., 

Pastor First Congregational Church, Cambridge. 



fN the Gospels we come frequently upon the expression, 
that the word of the prophet was fulfilled in that 
which was done. It had been announced because it 
was to be done. We find our Lord himself stating 
in earnest words : " Think not that I came to destroy the 
law or the prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." 
This gives to the ancient scripture an interest only less than 
that with which we read those which followed, and make 
with them one Book of many books. It is a saying with 
authority that the Old Testament lies open in the new, and 
the new hidden in the old. Indeed the facts of Christ's life, 
except in regard to names and dates, are given almost as 
clearly in the old as in the new, though we do not under- 
stand the old until we read it in the light of the new. 

Our Lord threw back his life into the purpose of God 

made known to men of the former time, while he sought to 

have men believe him because they believed those who 

had written of him. He said to the Jews, "Ye search the 

[book xii.] 574 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M'KENZIE. 

scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal 
life : and these are they which bear witness of me. . . . 
If ye believe Moses, ye would believe me ; for he wrote of 
me." 

It is a strange comment which the wise Selden makes 
upon this passage: " Scrutamini Scripturas. These two 
words have undone the world. Because Christ spake it to 
his disciples, therefore we must all, men, women, and 
children, read and interpret the scripture." It is this 
which all are to do, that we may know the truths of the 
divine life. 

It was an impressive scene when Jesus himself opened 
the scriptures in the synagogue at Nazareth. There he 
had been brought up and thence he had gone out a year 
before to begin his ministry as the Messiah. He had been 
at the wedding at Cana, where he befriended the bride 
when the wine of her wedding feast had failed, and then 
had gone to Jerusalem, where he drove the traders from his 
Father's house, and taught the Jewish ruler the way into 
the kingdom of heaven. He returned through Samaria, 
where, at the well of his ancestor, he talked with the wo- 
man who had come to draw water, and proffered the water 
of life, and declared himself the Messiah. There it was 
that he said, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent 
me, and to accomplish his work." Then he taught in Gali- 
lee, preaching in the synagogues, and calling the people to 
repentance, because the kingdom of heaven was at hand, 
"being glorified of all." He came again to Cana, where he 
healed a nobleman's son who was sick at Capernaum. 

575 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

Then he returned to his old home. His fame had gone be- 
fore him and the villagers had talked among themselves 
of the things which he had done. It is always with a pecul- 
iar interest that one who has been successful abroad comes 
back where he has been known from his youth up. When 
on the Sabbath day Jesus went into the village church as 
he had done all his life, men looked upon him as they had 
never done before. He was a man now and he could bear 
his part in the Sabbath service. He " stood up to read." 
They gave him the roll of the prophet Isaiah, and he found 
the place where it was written : — 

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the 

poor : 
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind, 
To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 

These words were familiar, but they had never been 
read as he read them. We may believe that his voice, 
with an unwonted emphasis, rested upon the word which 
denoted himself: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me." 
When he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant, 
all eyes were fastened on him. He said what men had 
never heard before : " To-day hath this scripture been ful- 
filled in your ears." They knew him. He had grown up 
among them, quiet, respectful, reverent. As he had grown 
in stature, so he had advanced in favor with them. They 

576 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M KENZIE. 

were not startled, therefore, as they heard him. But they 
listened eagerly to him, for he had always told the truth ; 
yet "they wondered at the words of grace which proceeded 
out of his mouth." They said, " Is not this Joseph's son ? " 
What they did when his words had offended them does not 
concern us now. 

But this concerns us, that Jesus read his biography out 
of the roll of the prophet, which had been written seven 
hundred years before. The words which he read he ful- 
filled. This is the Gospel, with its message to the poor, its 
freedom for captives, its light for the blind, its liberty for 
the bruised, its good news for all men. How he was to do 
that for which the Spirit rested upon him, and at what cost, 
even to the laying down of his life that he might take it 
again, this, too, is the Gospel. It is of especial moment that 
he found this record of his life in the sacred scriptures of 
his people. This raises his life from the plane of other 
lives. We should expect it to stand alone, even as it does. 
Once to grasp this thought is to touch the heart of the Gos- 
pel. 

At other times Jesus referred men to the old scriptures 
for the understanding of his life. When after his resurrec- 
tion he walked with two men on their way to Emmaus, 
and they were sad at heart because they had been dis- 
appointed in their hope that he was to redeem Israel, he 
began from Moses and all the prophets and "interpreted 
to them in all the scriptures the things concerning him- 
self." 

On the evening of that first day, when he came to his 

577 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

disciples, and they were troubled because of all which had 
bafned their hope, " He said unto them, these are my words 
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, how that 
all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the 
law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning 
me. Then opened he their mind that they might under- 
stand the scriptures." 

If we but knew what he said ! An inestimable treasure 
it would have been, — his own explanation of his life, as it 
lay within the purpose of God, and had been placed on 
record by men appointed to the service. Yet it is not diffi- 
cult for us, with the old scriptures in our hands, with our 
Lord's use of them at other times, with the explanation 
given by the writers of the New Testament, and the con- 
nection which they assert between the old and the new, — 
it is not difficult to ascertain, with reasonable assurance, 
the nature of the things which he said. He made three 
divisions of the records : Moses, and the prophets, and the 
psalms. We will take them in their order. The connection 
of Moses with our Lord was intimate. We find them as- 
sociated in the work of redemption. " The law was given 
through Moses ; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." 
" The law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ." 
When our Lord was transfigured, Moses was present, with 
Elijah, and they "spake of his decease, which he was 
about to accomplish at Jerusalem." 

In the work of the great lawgiver there was the antici- 
pation of the Redeemer's work. "As Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be 

578 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M'KENZIE. 

lifted up ; that whosoever believeth may in him have 
eternal life." Again Jesus connected Moses with himself 
when he said : " It was not Moses that gave you the bread 
out of heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread out 
of heaven." Again he represents Abraham as replying to 
the rich man who asked that one might be sent to warn his 
five brethren before they should die : " They have Moses 
and the prophets ; let them hear them. ... If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, if one rise from the dead." Jesus taught more 
clearly than any one the resurrection of the dead ; yet he 
said, " that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the 
place concerning the bush." 

Philip saw the words of Moses fulfilled when he told 
Nathanael : "We have found him of whom Moses in the 
law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth." 
Peter knew this when he justified himself in preaching 
Christ; saying, "Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the 
Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like 
unto me ; to him shall ye hearken in all things whatsoever 
he shall speak unto you." 

It is evident that Jesus would readily point out the fore- 
telling of his own life. When we reflect upon the position 
which Moses held in relation to the old covenant, the rela- 
tion of Jesus in the new covenant is most impressive. To 
the Jew who reverenced Moses this was especially true. 

We can be more definite than this. We have in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews an explicit setting forth of the rela- 
tion of the Christ to the religious system which was in- 

579 ■ 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

augurated through Moses, and with which the Hebrews 
were familiar from a lifelong usage. The whole Epistle 
should be read if we would feel its meaning. Read the in- 
troduction, to see how the divine purpose advances from 
the prophets of the old time to the Son who is the effulgence 
of the divine glory ; who "made purification of sins," and 
" sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." In 
the spirit of this beginning bring forward the old into the 
new ; look upon the tabernacle and temple, the priesthood, 
the sacrifice, and see that Jesus is the one High Priest, who 
has " through his own blood, entered in once for all into the 
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption," so that in 
heaven he is the mediator of a new covenant, who " put 
away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Christ, " having 
been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a 
second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, 
unto salvation." 

The Christian who wrote this Epistle is not known 
by name. But his words have illumined with a wondrous 
light the scriptures which Jesus knew and would have men 
search if they would know Him. Such things as are 
here written we may believe that Jesus said when, on the 
road to Emmaus and in the room where his disciples were 
gathered, he began with Moses and interpreted the things 
concerning himself. 

He spoke also of the prophets. He had done this before, 
in the synagogue at Nazareth. Their words were continu- 
ally in his mind, even from his boyhood. Frequently he 
referred to them in explanation of his life. One of the 

580 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M'KENZIE. 

most striking representations which he gave of himself 
was as a shepherd guarding his flock, leading them out, 
seeking even one sheep which was lost, giving his life for 
the sheep, intrusting them to the care of a friend who loved 
him, bringing them at last into one flock under one shep- 
herd. But this was the imagery of the prophets. Isaiah 
said of the Messiah, " He shall feed his flock like a shep- 
herd, he shall gather the lambs in his arm and carry them 
in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that give suck." 
Ezekiel is more explicit : ''For thus saith the Lord God : 
Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and 
will seek them out. . . I myself will feed my sheep, and 
I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will 
seek that which was lost, and will bring again that which 
was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, 
and will strengthen that which was sick." It was in doing 
this that the good Shepherd gave his life for the sheep. Per- 
haps he talked of these things as they drew near to Emmaus. 
We may be almost certain that he reminded his despondent 
friends of that which Isaiah had written. Upon one pas- 
sage of the prophet we have the comment of Philip the 
Evangelist. He found the treasurer of the Candace of 
Ethiopia reading as he rode homeward, and unable to un- 
derstand the words. He was reading from Isaiah, and in 
this place : — 

" He was led as a sheep to the slaughter : 
And as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, 
So he openeth not his mouth : 
581 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

In his humiliation his judgment was taken away : 
His generation who shall declare ? 
For his life is taken from the earth." 

He called Philip into the chariot, and as they rode he 
said : " I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this ? 
Of himself, or of some other ? And Philip opened his 
mouth, and beginning from this scripture, preached unto 
him Jesus." 

With this distinct portrayal of the Messiah's life in their 
minds, what was more simple than for his disciples to see 
that it behooved the Christ to suffer as he had done ? That 
which had removed their hope and weakened their faith, 
should be, rather, the confirmation of their faith, and the 
enlargement of their hope. He told them, also, we must 
believe, that the prophet who had thus presented the suffer- 
ing Messiah had announced the glory which should follow. 
He was to die, as Jesus had done, — " despised and rejected 
of men," bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows, 
making his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his 
death. But he should bring to his people renown and bless- 
ing when he came to them again. "Arise, shine ; for thy 
light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon 
thee. . . . The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting 
light, and thy God thy glory. I the Lord will hasten it in 
his time." More than ever was it true, that which Jesus 
had said, "I am the Light of the world." He had come 
through the darkness, and life and immortality were 
brought to light. When he said this to the friends of the 

582 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M KENZIE. 

sad hearts, and they saw him, with opened eyes and freed 
spirits, how quickly they went back to Jerusalem with the 
good news to find the eleven disciples risen from despair 
and saying, " The Lord is risen indeed." The fact was 
evident. To see that in this was the fulfillment of their own 
scriptures gave clearness and assurance to their thought. 
His death was not his defeat. It was the way to his vic- 
tory. He must pass through the gates of death if he would 
give life and light to the world. St. John writes that Isaiah 
" saw his glory ; and he spake of him." If he did not 
expressly mention the resurrection, he said that which in- 
cluded it, and made it needful. 

Jesus spoke also of the things which were written in the 
Psalms. Did he refer to the twenty-third Psalm, "The 
Lord is my shepherd " ? Did he recall the fifty-first, that 
they might see in his dying and rising the answer to its 
Miserere ? 

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving 
kindness. 
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot 
out my transgressions." 

It is probable that he brought to their minds the twenty- 
second Psalm, for it is the psalm of the crucifixion. What- 
ever other application it may have had, whatever thought 
was in the heart of the writer, — it is called a psalm of 
David, — it describes wonderfully the hours upon the cross. 
The first verse was the cry out of the darkness : " My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ! " 

583 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

We seem almost to be reading the words of the disciple, 
and the centurion, when Jesus was seen bruised and 
athirst. 

"lam poured out like water, and all my bones are 

out of joint : . . . 
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my 

tongue cleaveth to my jaws ; and thou hast brought 

me into the dust of death. 
For dogs have compassed me : the assembly of evil- 
doers have inclosed me ; they pierced my hands and 

my feet. 
I may tell all my bones ; They look and stare upon 

me. 
They part my garments among them, and upon my 

vesture do they cast lots." 

Even in this experience of death was the certainty of 
the triumph which would follow : — 

" I will declare thy name unto my brethren : 
In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee." 

On the day of Pentecost Saint Peter quoted at length 
from the sixteenth Psalm, and in the synagogue at Antioch 
in Pisidia, Saint Paul repeated one verse. Both asserted 
that the Psalm had its fulfillment in Jesus and his resurrec- 
tion. 

" Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. 
Moreover my flesh also shall dwell in hope : 

584 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M'KENZIE. 

Because thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither 
wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption. 

Thou madest known unto me the ways of life : thou 
shalt make me full of gladness with thy counte- 
nance." 

With such words as these Jesus instructed and encour- 
aged his friends when they were cast down by reason of 
his death, and their hope had been entombed with him. 
He showed them that Moses and the prophets and the 
psalmists had foretold this which had come to pass, and 
had given the meaning of it. He led them to see that his 
death should have been expected by them, as it had been 
always in his own mind. He showed them that it be- 
hooved him in this way to enter into his glory. He pre- 
sented himself to them as he who had been dead and was 
alive again. 

As we come forward with our Lord to his cross, and be- 
hold him offering himself as the Lamb of God, as he was 
named at the beginning ; as we see him when he has risen 
from the dead and is once more with his friends, that he 
may illumine their minds and send them forth into the 
world with the good news which he had brought from hea- 
ven, — the good news which he was, living, dyiug, risen : 
our minds run back through the centuries, where we find 
the promise of his coming, and the prefiguring of his life ; 
in the visions of the seers, in the songs of the psalmists, in 
the ministries of grace around the mercy seat. We discern 
the thought of God, the purpose which was before the world 

585 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

was made, seen dimly at the first, becoming more and more 
plain in the process of the years, till at length the star of 
the primal promise stands over the open sepulcher of the 
Son of God. The intent of God is clear and its movement 
in the course of history, in the career of the people whom 
he chose as the guardians of his name and his thought. 
The Messianic spirit breathes in the words of prophets 
and psalmists, till it is incarnate in him whose works 
many prophets and righteous men had desired to see ; who 
said in the consciousness of his own being, "Your father 
Abraham rejoiced to see my day ; and he saw it, and was 
glad." 

"The Jews therefore said unto him, Thou art not yet 
fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? " 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, 
I am." 

Our minds run forward also where we see "the throne 
of God and of the Lamb," — "I saw in the midst of the 
throne ... a Lamb standing, as though it had been 
slain." There is the " great multitude which no man could 
number, out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples 
and tongues, standing before the throne and before the 
Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands ; 
and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our 
God which sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb." The 
psalms have entered into heaven. " And they sing the song 
of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." 

To Saint John, in his vision from Patmos, the angel of 
the Apocalypse, before whom he had fallen, turned his 

586 



BY DR. ALEXANDER M KENZIE. 

homage to the throne, saying, "I am a fellow servant with 
thee and with thy brethren the prophets, and with them 
which keep the words of this book : worship God." The 
witness is on high, — Moses and the prophets and the 
psalms. From everlasting to everlasting is the Love of 
God, and the Love of God is the Redeemer of the world. 

" The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee. 
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee. 
The noble army of Martyrs praise thee. 
The Holy Church throughout all the world doth ac- 
knowledge thee 
The Father of an infinite Majesty ; 
Thine adorable, true, and only Son. 

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ, 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father." 




587 



SUPPLEMENTARY BOOK. 



-<Sfr-#~ 



Selected Chapters. 

^^m^x^ 

His Characteristics as a Preacher. Chapteri. Page 
By Prof. Wm. C. Wilkinson, University of Chicago. 
Condensed from the " Biblical World " with the writer's consent. 



In Remembrance of IVte. Chapter 2. Page 594. 

By Rt. Rev. J. C. Kyle, D.D., Lord Bishop of Liverpool. 
■ An excerpt from an Address delivered to the Clergy. 

Two Sayings from the Cross. Chapter 3. page 597. 

By Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D., Fallowfield, Manchester, England. 

Compiled from an Article originally published in the Sunday School Times by 
favor of the publishers. 

God's IvOve in Scripture. Chapter 4. Page 601. 

By Rev. Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D., Pres. Princeton University. 

Reported from an Address and verified by President Patton, who has assented to its 
use in this volume. 

The Redemption of Humanity. Chapter 5. Page 604. 
By Rt. Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone. 

Compiled from Mr. Gladstone's writings : showing his attitude towards Christ and 
Christianity. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

His Characteristics as a Preacher, 

By Professor William C. Wilkinson, A.M., 

University of Chicago. 




E might say that Jesus spoke like a seer, like a 
prophet, like an oracle. But that would very 
imperfectly, indeed it would somewhat mis- 
leadingly, express the fact. He is nowhere in the records 
that we have of him, exhibited to us as going through any 
of those intellectual processes by which men in general 
arrive at their results in conviction, true or false. He was 
not a seeker of truth. So far as appears he did not reason, in- 
stitute inductions, draw inferences. He saw without effort. 
He did not explore and discover. He saw and announced. 
He spoke indeed from God, but it was in the character of a 
person at the same time consciously one with God. 

There is in his utterances, no doubt, no faltering, no 
wavering, no slightest possibility admitted, however re- 
motely, of the speaker's being mistaken. Christ's charac- 
teristic formula of preface, "Verily, verily," was but a 
kind of spontaneous, inevitable notice and sign given to 

[Supplementary Book.] 5g9 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

hearers, of the ultimate, the absolute, character of certainty 
inhering in that which was to follow from his lips. 

Jesus held toward the Old Testament Scriptures a double 
attitude. On the one side, he treated them with the utmost 
reverence. He said, or implied, that their sentence on any 
point which they touched, was final and irreversible. It is, 
however, to be noted that this accent of reverence on 
Christ's part for the Old Testament Scriptures, very singu- 
larly involves also a tacit assumption on his part of author- 
ity belonging to himself, coequal with their own, nay, even 
transcending it. 

One noteworthy feature in Christ's preaching is this, that 
the ultimate subject and object of his preaching was him- 
self : — " I say unto you ; " " These sayings of mine ; " " If 
I then, your Lord and Master ; " " One is your Master, even 
Christ ;" "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest ;" "Ye will not come unto 
me that ye might have life;" "I am the way, and the 
truth, and the life;" "No man cometh unto the Father, 
but by me." The Christ or Messiah of the Old Testament 
had for ages been preached or predicted in virtually equiv- 
alent terms. 

It is noticeable in the preaching of Jesus that he took 
advantage of the incalculable oratorio reinforcement to 
be drawn from fit opportunity. He hinged and jointed his 
instructions into particular occasions suggesting them, or 
at least making them at a given moment especially appo- 
site. And in the same wise spirit of thrifty self -adjustment 
to occasion, Jesus, where occasion did not offer itself ready - 

590 



BY PROF. W. C. WILKINSON. 

made to his hand, would say something introductory to 
serve the purpose of an occasion. For instance, he would 
rouse attention and expectation, by providing beforehand, 
over against what he had to say, some antithesis to it, real 
or apparent. " Ye have heard that it was said An eye for 
an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you Resist 
not him that is evil," is an illustration of this method on the 
part of Jesus. For we have here simply a rhetorical device 
for commanding attention and strengthening impression. 
Paradox was with Jesus a favorite expedient in teaching ; 
perhaps no other teacher ever made proportionately more 
use of it than he did. You cannot understand Jesus 
without often making allowance for paradox in his form 
of expression. 

Hyperbole is yet another rhetorical expedient freely used 
by Jesus in his discourse. Consider the following: "If 
any man hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, 
and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple." The vast, the immeas- 
urable claim on his own behalf which Jesus habitually 
makes does not itself admit of overstatement ; but the just 
statement of it here made is made by means of overstate- 
ment the most extraordinary. It is a case of hyberbole 
rendered more hyperbolic through accumulation and cli- 
max. We must beware, in the case of Jesus, as theologians 
long ago ought to have done in the case of the apostle Paul, 
not to make dogma out of mere rhetoric. 

Another point to be noted is the even-handed justice 
with which Jesus metes out his awards of praise and of 

591 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

blame. There is, however, — and it could not be other 
wise if justice prevailed, — a very noticeable predominance 
of blame over praise in the sentences from his lips. The 
note of rebuke, nay, even of heavy-shotted denunciation, 
is very strong (and this note not infrequently recurs) in the 
discourses of Jesus. Nothing could exceed the unrelieved, 
the red-hot, the white-hot, indignation and damnation 
launched by Jesus against certain classes and certain indi- 
viduals among his hearers. The fierceness, indeed, is such 
that it is plainly beyond the mark of what could properly 
be drawn into precedent for any other preacher. Jesus is 
hardly in anything else more entirely put outside the possi- 
bility of classification with his human brethren, than in the 
article now spoken of. One thing, however, we instinct- 
ively feel to be certain, that even in his most terrible in- 
vectives there was no violence of tone, of gesture, or of 
manner. If fidelity would not permit him to appear relent- 
ing, the quality of love in him would not permit him to 
appear vindictive. 

An observation which may seem to some a disparage- 
ment of the office of preacher in Jesus is here required by 
truth. It must be said that Jesus as a preacher was, in his 
own view, nothing whatever in importance as compared 
with Jesus the suffering Saviour. " I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me/' he said, near the end, with a depth 
of meaning and pathos beyond the reach of human plum- 
met to sound ; and at the very last, "This is my blood of 
the covenant, which is shed for many." What his preach- 
ing had failed to effect, it remained for his obedience unto 

592 



BY PROF. W. C. WILKINSON. 

death, the death of the cross, to accomplish. His preaching 
thus acknowledged that preaching alone was in vain : Jesus 
preached Jesus as a Eedeemer by blood. He set herein an 
example which every faithful minister of the Gospel, to the 
end of the age, must follow. 




593 



CHAPTER TWO. 

In Remembrance of Me. 

By the Right Reverend John Charles Ryle, D.D., D.C.L., 

Lord Bishop of Liverpool. 



■ -a©^ & s «? €? ^3*- • 




HAT was the object and purpose for which our 
Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Sup- 
per ? What does the New Testament teach us ? 

The best answer to that question is to be found in the 
remarkable words which St. Luke and St. Paul alone were 
inspired to record, " This do in remembrance of Me." There 
is a grand simplicity and pathos about the expression " In 
remembrance of Me." 

The best comment on this deep phrase is to be found in 
the words of our Church Catechism : " For the continual 
remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and 
of the benefits which we receive thereby." 

The Lord Jesus Christ intended the Lord's Supper to be 
a continual remembrancer to the Church of his atoning 
death on the cross. The bread broken, given, and eaten, 
was intended to remind Christians of his body given for 
our sins. The wine poured out, and received with our lips, 
was intended to remind Christians of his blood shed for 
our sins. 

[Supplementary Book.] 594 



BY RT. REV. J. C. RYLE. 

The Lord Jesus Christ knew what was in man. He 
knew full well the darkness, slowness, coldness, hardness, 
stupidity, pride, self-conceit, self-righteousness, slothful- 
ness, of human nature in spiritual things. Therefore he 
took care that his vicarious death for sinners should not be 
merely written in the Bible — for then it might have been 
locked up in libraries, or left to the ministry to proclaim in 
the pulpit — for then it might soon have been kept back 
by false teachers — but that it should be exhibited in visible 
signs and emblems, even in bread and wine at a special 
ordinance. The Lord's Supper was a standing provision 
against man's forgetfulness. So long as the world stands 
in its present order, the thing which is done at the Lord's 
table "shows forth the Lord's death till he come." 

The Lord Jesus Christ knew full well the unspeakable 
importance of his own death for sin, as the great corner 
stone of Scriptural religion. He knew that his own satis- 
faction for siri as our substitute — his suffering for sin, the 
just for the unjust — his payment of our mighty debt in 
his own person — his complete redemption of us by his 
blood — he knew that this was the very root of soul-saving 
and soul-satisfying Christianity. Without this he knew 
that his incarnation, miracles, teaching, example, and 
ascension could do no good to man : without this, there could 
be no justification, no reconciliation, no hope, no peace be- 
tween God and man. Knowing all this, he took care that 
his death, at any rate, should never be forgotten. He care- 
fully appointed an ordinance in which, by lively figures, his 
sacrifice on the cross should be kept in perpetual remem- 

595 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

brance, and the souls of believers might feed on it, as a 
body feeds on bread and wine. 

The Lord Jesus Christ well knew the weakness and 
infirmity even of the holiest believers. He knew the ab- 
solute necessity of keeping them in intimate communion 
with his own vicarious sacrifice, as the fountain of their 
inward and spiritual life. Therefore, he did not merely 
leave them promises on which their memories might feed, 
and words which they might call to mind. He mercifully 
provided an ordinance in which true faith might be 
quickened by seeing lively emblems of his body and blood, 
and in the use of which true Christians might be " strength- 
ened and refreshed," as the Catechism says, and realize 
close communion with their Saviour in heaven. The 
strengthening of the faith of believers in Christ's atone- 
ment was one great purpose of the Lord's Supper.* 



* The following extract from Archbishop Cranmer's writings de- 
serves attention : — 

" The first Catholic Christian faith is most plain, clear, and comfort- 
able, without any difficulty, scruple, or doubt : that is to say, that our 
Saviour Christ, although he be sitting in heaven, in equality with his 
Father, is our life, strength, food, and sustenance, who by his death de- 
livered us from death, and daily nourishes and increases us to eternal life. 
And in token hereof, he hath prepared bread to be eaten, and wine to be 
drunk for us in his Holy Supper, to put us in remembrance of his said 
death, and of the celestial feeding, nourishing, increasing, and of all the 
benefits which we have thereby ; which benefits, through faith and the 
Holy Ghost, are exhibited and given unto all that worthily receive the 
said Holy Supper. This the husbandman at his plough, the weaver at 
his loom, and the wife at her rocking cradle, can remember, and give 
thanks unto God for the same." 

596 



CHAPTER THREE. 



Two Sa.yin.gs from the Cross.* 

By Alexander McLaren, D.D., 

Fallowfield, Manchester, England. 

■ *^#gl#^ 



(^ HE calm tone of all the narratives of the crucifixion 
4 is very remarkable. Each evangelist limits him- 

^lM— self to bare recording of facts, without a trace of 
emotion. They felt too deeply to show feeling. It was 
fitting that the story which, till the end of time, was to 
move hearts to a passion of love and devotion, should be 
told without any coloring. But a reverent word or two is 
permissible. 



3URR0UNDED by a whirlwind of abuse, contempt, 
and ferocious glee at his sufferings, he gave back no 
taunt, nor uttered any cry of pain, nor was moved 
to the faintest anger, but let his heart go out in pity for all 
who took part in that wicked tragedy; and, while "he 
opened not his mouth '* in complaint or reviling, he did open 

* This article is a part of a paper originally published in the Sunday 
School Times, and reproduced by favor of the publishers. 
[Supplementary Book.] 597 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

it in intercession. But the wonderful prayer smote no 
heart with compunction, and, after it, the storm of mock- 
ing and savage triumph hurtled on as before. 

Luke gathers all the details together in summary fashion, 
and piles them on one another without enlarging on any. 
The effect produced is like that of a succession of breakers 
beating on some lonely rock, or of blows struck by a batter- 
ing-ram on a fortress. 

"They crucified him," — there is no need to say who 
" they " were. Others than the soldiers who did the work, 
did the deed. Contempt gave him two malefactors for 
companions, and hung the King of the Jews in the place of 
honor in the midst. Did John remember what his brother 
and he had asked ? Matter-of-fact indifference as to a piece 
of military duty, and shameless greed, impelled the legion- 
aries to cast lots for the clothes stripped from a living man. 
What did the crucifying of another Jew or two matter to 
them ? Gaping curiosity, and the strange love of the horri- 
ble, so strong in the vulgar mind, led the people, who had 
been shouting Hosanna, less than a week ago, to stand 
gazing on the sight without pity but in a few hearts. 

The bitter hatred of the rulers, and their inhuman glee 
at getting rid of a heretic, gave them bad pre-eminence in 
sin. Their scoff acknowledged that he had "saved others," 
and their hate had so blinded their eyes that they could 
not see how manifestly his refusal to use his power to save 
himself proved him the Son of God. He could not save 
himself, just because he would save these scoffing rabbis 
and all the world. The rough soldiers knew little about 

598 



BY ALEXANDER MCLAREN. 

him, but they followed suit, and thought it an excellent 
jest to bring the " vinegar," provided in kindness, to Jesus 
with a mockery of reverence as to a king. 

And to all this, Christ's sole answer was the ever-memo- 
rable prayer. One of the women who bravely stood at the 
cross must have caught the perhaps low-voiced supplication 
and it breathed so much of the aspect of Christ's character 
in which Luke especially delights that he could not leave 
it out. It opens many large questions which cannot be 
dealt with here. All sin has in it an element of ignorance, 
but it is not wholly ignorance, as some modern teachers 
affirm. If the ignorance were complete, the sin would be 
non-existent. The persons covered by the ample folds of 
this prayer were ignorant in very different degrees ; the 
soldiers and the rulers were in different positions in that 
respect. In the prayer of Jesus we learn, not only his in- 
finite f orgivingness for insults and unbelief leveled at him- 
self, but his exaltation as the Intercessor, whom the Father 
heareth always. The dying Christ prayed for his enemies ; 
the glorified Christ lives to make intercession for us. 



IN the one malefactor, physical agony and despair found 
momentary, relief in taunts, flung from lips dry with 
torture, at the fellow-sufferer whose very innocence pro- 
voked hatred from the guilty heart. The other had been 
led by punishment to recognize in it the due reward of his 
deeds, and, thus softened, had been moved by Christ's prayer, 
and by his knowledge of Christ's innocence, to hope that 

599 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

the same mercy which had been lavished on the inflicters 
of his sufferings, might stretch to enfold the partakers in it. 

At that moment the dying thief had clearer faith in 
Christ's coming in his kingdom than any of the disciples had. 
Their hopes were crumbling as they watched him hanging 
unresisting and gradually dying. But this man looked 
beyond the death so near for both Jesus and himself, and 
believed that, after it, he would come to reign. We may 
call him the only disciple that Christ then had. 

How pathetic is that petition, "Remember me"! It 
builds the hope of sharing in Christ's royalty on the fact of 
having shared in his cross. " Thou wilt not forget thy 
companion in that black hour, which will then lie behind 
us." Such trust and clinging, joined with such penitence 
and submission, could not go unrewarded. 

From his cross Jesus speaks in royal style, as monarch 
of that dim world. His promise is sealed with his own sign- 
manual, " Yerily I say." It claims to have not only the 
clear vision of, but the authority to determine, the future. 
It declares the unbroken continuance of personal existence, 
tmd the reality of a state of conscious blessedness, in which 
men are aware of their union with him, the Lord of the 
realm and the life of its inhabitants. It graciously accepts 
the penitent's petition, and assures him that the companion- 
ship, begun on the cross, will be continued there. " With 
me " makes " Paradise " wherever a soul is. 



600 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

God's Love in Scripture, 

By Rev. Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D., 

President of Princeton University. 




A 



PPLYING to Scripture the argument of design, we 
say that it was constructed upon a plan which 
must have existed in a single mind before it 
was executed in the progressive publication 
of the separate books of the Bible. The Incarnation is a 
hypothesis which gives unity to the Bible, which reveals the 
fact that through the volume, from Genesis to Revelation, 
" the same increasing purpose runs." 

The Old Testament is a congruous body of doctrine cul- 
minating in Christ ; the New Testament is a coherent body 
of doctrine crystallizing around the person of Christ. * What 



*Note by the Author. The underlying thought in President 
Patton's paper, that the Incarnation, as the leading idea of the Bible, is 
to be accounted for by the intelligent design and choice of God as truly as 
the physical creation is to be traced to the First Cause of all things, accords 
with what has been so admirably said by Professor Samuel Harris, 
of Yale University, concerning the holy, loving, manlike nature of God 
as the ground of the revelation of Jesus Christ, — since it is no more true 

[Supplementary Book.] QQ1 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

is the Incarnation but the synthesis of the teaching of the 
Old Testament ? And what is the New Testament but an 
unfolding of the ideas which are wrapped up in the doc- 
trine of the Incarnation ? How did this happen ? The 
doctrine of the Incarnation is not a patch put into the web 
of the Old Testament by human hands : if it had been, it 
would have been so palpable that no one would ever have 
denied that the Bible contains it. But it is woven so 
delicately into the structure of the sacred books, that though 
you see the Incarnate Christ as the central figure of the 
Bible, it requires patient study and profound thought to 



that man was made in the moral image of God, than that God is the 
prototype of man in his essential character : — 

' < All science rests on the postulate that the universe is constituted in 
accordance with the principles and laws of reason, the same in kind with 
the reason of man. The progress of physical science is simply the exposi- 
tion of this fact. . . . The science both of nature and of man is a 
continuous demonstration of the likeness of man as a rational and moral 
being to God who created and constituted the universe. In Christ, God 
comes into humanity and reveals himself in the likeness of man, and man 
in the likeness of God. God's likeness to man in these attributes and 
elements is a fundamental reality of the universe underlying all physical 
science and all knowledge of the moral constitution and ordering of 
society." — God the Creator. Vol. i, pp. 418, 419. 

' ' As rational and personal . . . there is eternal in God a like- 
ness to man, which he has revealed to men in Christ, through whom 
they have their highest and most complete knowledge of him." — Ibid. 
p. 412. 

Christ again is spoken of as " revealing the human side of God and 
his affinity for all his rational creatures " — " God in the likeness of the 
finite spirit, and effulgent with divine and Christlike love." — Ibid. p. 
420. 

602 



BY DR. F. L PATTON. 

see how this idea runs through and gives unity to the 
whole. 

The reasons which lead us to believe that God made 
the world should lead us just as well to the conclusion 
that God made the Bible. There is design in history, and 
free intelligences are blind weavers of the great web of 
human destiny ; but we must believe that these intelli- 
gences are controlled by the directing mind of God, or there 
is no explanation of the plan which history reveals. We may 
believe that the testimony to Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy, 
and that the prophet was a blind worker in the develop- 
ment of a plan to which so many workers contributed ; but 
behind the prophet we must place the inspiration of the 
prophet, and superior to the prophet, the Spirit who shaped 
his visions, and whose word was on his tongue. 






603 



h 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

The Redemption of Humanity. 

By Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, D.C.L., LL.D. 

^s>^$^s> 

(5f|^F we survey with care and candor the present wealth 
of the world — I mean its wealth intellectual, moral, 
and spiritual — we find that Christianity has not only 
contributed to the patrimony of man its brightest and 
most precious jewels, but has likewise been what our Sav- 
iour pronounced it, the salt or preserving principle of all the 
residue, and has maintained its health, so far as it has been 
maintained at all, against corrupting agencies.* 

This gift of God to our race was made through Jesus 
Christ, of the seed of Abraham. \ The Jew had the oracles 
of God : he had the custody of the promises : he was the 
steward of the great and fundamental conception of the 
unity of God, the sole and absolute condition under which 
the Divine idea could be upheld among men at its just 
elevation. No poetry, no philosophy, no art of Greece, ever 
embraced, in its most soaring and widest conceptions, that 

* Essay upon the Place of Ancient Greece in the Providential Order. 
Gleanings of Past Years. By W. E. Gladstone. Vol. vii, p. 78 ; para- 
graph 79. London, 1879. 

f This connective sentence has been supplied by the Author : all else 
in this article being in the words of Mr. Gladstone. 
[Supplementary Book.] gQ4_ 



BY RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 

simple law of love towards God and towards our neighbor, 
on whicji "two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets," and which supplied the moral basis of the new 
dispensation. 

There is one history, and that the most touching and 
most profound of all, for which we should search in vain 
through all the pages of the classics, — I mean the history 
of the human soul in its relations with its Maker ; the his- 
tory of its sin, and grief, and death, and of the way of its 
recovery to hope and life, and to enduring joy. For the 
exercises of strength and skill, for the achievements and for 
the enchantments of wit, of eloquence, of art, of genius, for 
the imperial games of politics and war — let us seek them 
on the shores of Greece. But if the first among the prob- 
lems of life be how to establish the peace, and restore the 
balance of our inward being ; if the highest of all conditions 
in the existence of the creature be his aspect towards the 
God to whom he owes his being, and in whose great hand 
he stands ; then let us make our search elsewhere. All the 
wonders of the Greek civilization heaped together are less 
wonderful than is the single Book of Psalms. 

Palestine was weak and despised, always obscure, often- 
times and long trodden down beneath the feet of imperious 
masters. On the other hand, Greece, for a thousand years, 

" Confident from foreign purposes," 

repelled every invader from her shores. Fostering her 
strength in the keen air of freedom, she defied, and at 
length overthrew, the mightiest of existing empires ; and 

605 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

when finally she felt the resistless grasp of the masters of all 
the world, them, too, at the very moment of her subjuga- 
tion, she herself subdued to her literature, language, arts, 
and manners. Palestine, in a word, has no share of the 
glories of our race ; while they blaze on every page of the 
history of Greece with an overpowering splendor. Greece 
had valor, policy, renown, genius, wisdom, wit ; she had all, 
in a word, that this world could give her ; but the flowers of 
Paradise, which bloom at the best but thinly, blossomed in 
Palestine alone.* 

TT> SCHEME came eighteen hundred years ago to the 
/ V world, which has banished from the earth, or fright- 
ened into the darkness, many of the foulest mon- 
sters that laid waste humanity ; which has restored woman 
to her place in the natural order ; which has set up the 
law of right against the rule of force ; which has pro- 
claimed, and in many great particulars enforced, the canon 
of mutual love ; which has opened from within sources of 
strength for poverty and weakness, and put a bit in the 
mouth and a bridle on the neck of pride, f 

The Christian thought, the Christian tradition, the Chris- 
tian society, are the great, the imperial thought, the tradi- 
tion, the society of this earth. | 

* This paragraph and the two preceding are found in the Essay upon 
Ancient Greece, etc., pp. 79, 80 ; being paragraphs 81, 82, 83. 

f Essay on the Courses of Religious Thought. Gleanings of Past 
Years. Vol. iii, p. 124 ; paragraph 45. 

%Ibid. p. 97 ; paragraph 4. 

606 



BY RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 

IT is no paradox to suggest that a religion which purports 
to open the means of reunion with God and to restore 
the eternal life which we have lost, by means of a spiritual 
process wrought upon us, should propound as essential 
constituents of that process a faith to be held concerning 
the nature and attributes of him whose image we are to 
bear ; concerning the dispensation of time for forming our 
union with him, and the dispensation of eternity in which 
the union with him becomes consummate and imperishable. 
Christianity is the religion of the person of Christ, and the 
creeds only tell us from whom he came, and how he came 
and went, by what agent we are to be incorporated into 
him, and what is the manner of his appointed agency, and 
the seal of its accomplishment.* 

NOT at a venture but with strict reason, the assertion has 
been made that the question, whether Christianity be 
true or false, is the most practical of all questions : be- 
cause it is that question of practice which incloses in itself, 
and implicitly determines, every other : it supplies the 
fundamental rule or principle of every decision in detail, f 

Whether we refer to the Scriptures, or to the collateral 
evidence of history and of the Church, we find it to be un- 
deniable as a fact that Christianity purports to be not a 

* Essay on Probability as the Guide of Conduct. Gleanings, Vol. vii, 
p. 185 ; paragraph 48. 

f Ibid. p. 183 ; paragraph 46. 

607 



OUR ELDER BROTHER. 

system of moral teaching only, but, in vital union there- 
with, a system of revealed facts concerning the nature of 
God, and his dispensations towards mankind. Upon these 
facts, which center in our Lord and Saviour, moral teach- 
ing is to rest, and to these it is to be indissolubly attached. 
Thus the part of Christianity called doctrinal has that claim 
to enter into our affirmative or negative decision, which 
belongs to a question strictly practical. It is, therefore, 
one to which we inevitably must daily and hourly say 
Aye or No by our actions, even if we have given no specu- 
lative reply upon it.* 

* Ibid. p. 184; paragraph 47. 




608 




Appendix:. 
Reference Authors. 

HE Author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness 
to the writers of many books, a part of whom are 
enumerated in the following list, which comprises 
those who have prepared the Bible Dictionaries, Commen- 
taries, books upon Antiquities, Geography and Topog- 
raphy of the Holy Land, books of Travel and popular de- 
scription, Sacred History, Lives of Christ, volumes upon 
particular phases of the life of Jesus, treatises upon the 
theology of Christ's work, and Lectures or Sermons relating 
to our Lord, that have been the most helpful in preparing 
this volume. There are among these titles about a score of 
books— transferred from the footnotes— from which the 
Author has directly quoted even when his studies have not 
led him to peruse them at length. 

Nehemiah Adams, D.D. 

Christ a Friend. Boston. 1876. 

Friends of Christ in the New Testament. Boston. 1853. 

Communion Sabbath. Boston. 1858. 

Rev. Jacob Abbott. 

The Corner Stone. New York. 1855. 

609 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Lyman Abbott, D.D., Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. 

Life of Jesus of Nazareth. New York. 1869. 

Padre Agostino da Montefeltro. 

Sermons. Second Series — at Rome. New York. 

J. Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor in Princeton College. 

Commentary on Isaiah. New York. 1851. 2 Vols. 

Henry Mills Alden, A.M., Managing Editor of Harper's Maga- 
zine. 
God in his World. New York. 1890. 

Very Rev. Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. 

Greek Testament. London. 1854. 

How to Study the New Testament. New York. 1866. 

Rev. Samuel J. Andrews. 

The Life of our Lord upon Earth, considered in its Historical, 
Chronological, and Geographical Relations. New York. 1863. 

Thomas Armitage, D.D., LL.D. 

Christ ; His Nature and Work. New York. 

Saint Augustine. 

Homilies on the Gospel of St. John. Oxford. 1848. 
Confessions, Pusey's Translation. Oxford. 1840. 

James T. Barclay. 

The City of the Great King ; or Jerusalem as it was, as it is, and 
as it should be. Philadelphia. 1857. 

Rev. Albert Barnes. 

Notes on the Gospels. New York. 2 Yols. 

Lecture on the Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. New York. 1868. 

610 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Life of Christ. New York. Vol. I., 1871 ; Vol. II., 1891. 

J. A. Bengel, D.D., Consistorial Counselor and Prelate of 
Alpirsbach. 
Gnomon, or Exegetical Annotations on the New Testament. 
Edinburgh. 1860. 

Henry Norris Bernard, M.A., LL.B. 

The Mental Characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ. London. 

1888. 

Rev. Thomas D. Bernard, Chancellor of Wells Cathedral. 

The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. (Bampton Lec- 
tures for 1865.) Boston. 1867. 

Rev. Charles Loring Brace. 

Gesta Christi ; or a History of Human Progress under Christianity. 
New York. 1882. 

Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. 

Christ in Modern Life : Sermons preached in St. James Chapel. 
London. 1872. 

Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts. 

The Influence of Jesus. (Bohlen Lectures for 1879.) New York. 

George Dana Boardman, D.D. 

The Divine Man. New York. 1887. 

Alexander B. Bruce, D.D. 

The Training of the Twelve. Edinburgh. 1871. 

Horace Bushnell, D.D., LL.D. 

Christ and his Salvation. New York. 1864. 
God in Christ. New York. 1849. 
Nature and the Supernatural. New York. 1858. 
The Vicarious Sacrifice. New York. 1866. 
Forgiveness and Law. New York. 1874. 

611 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

J. Glentworth Butler, D.D. 

The Bible-work : the Fourfold Gospels. New York. 1889. 

Rev. Principal Cairns, D.D. 

Christ the Central Evidence of Christianity. (The Cunningham 
Lecture for 1880.) London. 

E. H. Chapin, D.D. 

Characters in the Gospels. New York. 

Stephen Charnock. 

Discourses on the Attributes. Bohn's Edition. London. 

Christianity and Skepticism : Lectures. Boston. 1871. 

Saint Chrysostom. 

Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Oxford. 1848. 

James Freeman Clarke, D.D. 

Legend of Thomas Didymus, the Jewish Skeptic. Boston. 1881. 

Clement of Rome. 

Epistles. 

Frances Power Cobbe. 

Broken Lights. Boston. 1864. 

Rt. Rev. J. W. Colenso, Bishop of Natal. 

Natal Sermons. London. 1866. 

R. W. Dale, D.D., LL.D. 

The Atonement. London. 1874. 

Edmond De Pressense, D.D. 

Jesus Christ, his Times, Life, and Work. London. 1866. 

Orville Dewey, D.D. 

Works. Boston. 1883. 

612 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

William Hepworth Dixon, F.G.S., F.S.A. 

The Holy Land. Leipsic. 1865. 2 Vols. 

Marcus Dods, D.D. 

Essay upon the Trustworthiness of the Gospels. 

I. August Dorner, D.D., Professor in the University of Berlin. 
Doctrine of the Person of Christ. Edinburgh. 1878. 

Zachary Eddy, D.D. 

Immanuel ; or the Life of Jesus Christ our Lord. Springfield. 

1868. 

Alfred Edersheim, D.D., Ph.D., Grinfield Lecturer at Oxford. 

The Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah. London. 1883. 2 

Vols. 
Sketch of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ. Boston. 

1876. 

Rt. Rev. C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 

Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Boston. 
1862. 

Heinrich Georg August von Ewald, Professor at Tubingen. 

Life of Christ. London. 1865. 

Frederick W. Faber, D.D., Head of the London Oratory. 

Bethlehem. London. 1860. 

Very Rev. F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Dean of Canterbury. 

Life of Christ. London. 1874. 2 Vols. 

The Witness of History to Christ : Five Sermons. (The Hulsean 

Lectures for 1870.) London. 1871. 
The Life of Christ as represented in Art. New York. 1894. 
Saintly Workers. London. 1878. 

Cyrus D. Foss, D.D. 

Christ and His Work. New York. 1878. 

613 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Rev. Andrew Fuller. 

Works : The Atonement. Philadelphia. 

Rev. W. L. Gage, M.A. 

Studies in Bible Lands. Boston. 1869. 

J. Cunningham Geikie, D.D. 

Life and Words of Christ. London. 1878. 2 Vols. 

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, D.C.L., LL.D. 

Review of Ecce Homo. London. 18G6. 

Frederick L. Godet, D.D., Professor of Theology at Neuchatel. 

Studies in the New Testament. New York. 1877. 

Rev. Henry M. Goodwin. 

Christ and Humanity: with a Review of the Doctrine of Christ's 
Person. London. 1875. 

Simon Greenleaf, LL.D., Professor in the Dane Law School. 

Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by Rules of 
Evidence administered in Courts of Justice. With an account 
of the Trial of Jesus. Boston. 1846. 

Thomas Guthrie, D.D. 

The Parables read in the Light of the Present Day. London. 

1SGG. 

Horatio B. Hackett, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Newton 
Theological Institution. 
Illustrations of Scripture, suggested by a Tour in the Holy Land. 
Boston. 1855. 

William Hanna, D.D., LL.D. 

The Last Days of our Lord's Passion. Edinburgh. 1862. 

The Forty Days after our Lord's Resurrection. London. 1863. 

614 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Ven. Charles Hardwick, M.A., Archdeacon of Ely. 

Christ and other Masters : an Inquiry into some of the Parallelisms 
and Contrasts between Christianity and the Religious Systems of 
the Ancient World. London. 1855. 4 parts. 

Very Rev. Julius Charles Hare. 

Mission of the Comforter. London. 1892. 

John Harris, D.D., Principal of New College. 
The Great Teacher. London. 1835. 

Samuel Harris, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Yale University. 
Kingdom of Christ on Earth. Andover. 1874. 
The Self Revelation of God. New York. 1887. 
God the Creator and Lord of all. New York. 1896. 2 Vols, 

James Augustus Hessey, D.C.L. 

Sunday. (Bampton Lectures of 1860.) London. 

Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Union 
Theological Seminary. 
Eternal Atonement. New York. 1888. 

Charles Hodge, D.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Sem- 
inary. 

Systematic Theology. New York. 1872. 

Mark Hopkins, D.D., LL.D., President of Williams College. 

Evidences of Christianity. Boston. 1863. 

Thomas Hartwell Home, D.D. 

Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy 
Scriptures. London. 1856. 4 Vols. 

Thomas Hughes, F.S.A., Q.C. 

The Manliness of Christ. London. 1879. 

615 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S.T.D., LL.D., Bishop of Cen- 
tral New York. 
Christ in the Christian Year and in the Life of Man : Sermons. 

New York. 1878. 
Second Series. 1881. 
Forty Days Avith the Master. 

Rev. Edward Irving. 

Lectures on John the Baptist. London. 1864. 

Johann Jahn, Professor of Oriental Languages in The University 

of Vienna. 
Biblical Archaeology. New York. 1832. 

Mrs. Anna Jameson. 

Sacred and Legendary Art. London. 1850. 

Legends of the Madonna as represented in the Fine Arts. Lon- 
don. 1852. 

Flavius Josephus. 

Antiquities of the Jews, translated by William Whiston, M.A. 
London. 1852. 

Rev. Charles Kingsley, F.L.S., F.G.S., Regius Professor of 
Modern History at Cambridge. 
The Gospel of the Pentateuch : a set of Parish Sermons. London. 
1863. 

John Kitto, D.D. 

Daily Bible Illustrations. New York. 1857. 

Cyclopedia of Bible Literature. Edinburgh. 1862. 3 Vols. 

Friedrich W. Krummachar, Court Preacher at Potsdam. 

The Suffering Saviour. Boston. 1856. 

The Rev. Pere Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire. 

Jesus Christ ; Conferences at Notre Dame. New York. 1872. 

616 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Prof essor in the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. 
The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (Bampton 
Lectures.) London. 1867. 

Rev. Friedrich Gustav Lisco, Minister of St. Gertraud, Berlin. 

The Parables of Jesus explained and illustrated. Boston. 
1846. 

Rev. John M. Lowrie. 

A Week with Jesus. Philadelphia. 1866. 

Commander W. F. Lynch, United States Navy. 

Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and 
the Dead Sea. Philadelphia. 1849. 

George Macdonald, LL.D. 

The Miracles of our Lord. New York. 1871. 

The Rev. John Ross MacDuff, D.D. 

Memories of Gennesaret. New York. 1858. 
Cities of Refuge ; or the Name of Jesus. New York. 1860. 
Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains. New York. 1862. 
Memories of Olivet. New York. 1867. 

Daniel March, D.D. 

Night Scenes in the Bible. Philadelphia. 
Home Life in the Bible. Philadelphia. 

James Martineau, D.D., LL.D., Th.D. 

Hours of Thought on Sacred Things. Boston. 1876. 

Frederick D. Maurice, D.D. 

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God. London. 1866. 

Selah Merrill, D.D., LL.D. 

Galilee in the Time of Christ. Boston. 1881. 

617 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Professor J. D. Michaelis, of the University of Gottingen. 
On the Laws of Moses. London. 1814. 4 Vols. 

John Stuart Mill. 

Three Essays on Religion. New York. 1874. 

William Hodge Mill, D.D. 

Sermons before the University of Cambridge, Lent, 1844, On the 
Temptation of Christ. London. 

Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. 

The History of the Jews. London. 1835. 3 Vols. 

The History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Aboli- 
tion of Paganism in the Roman Empire. New York. 1861. 
3 Yols. 

Rev. A. J. Morris. 

Christ the Spirit of Christianity. London. 

Protup Chunder Mozoomdar. 

The Oriental Christ. Boston. 1883. 

Jules Ernest Naville, Professor in the University of Geneva. 

The Christ. Edinburgh. 1880. 

Augustus Neander, D.D., Professor in the University of Berlin. 

The Life of Jesus Christ. London. 1857. 

Universal History of the Christian Religion and Church. Boston. 
1847. 

Andrews Norton, D.D., Professor in Harvard Divinity School. 
Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. Boston. 1871. 

Hermann Olshausen, D.D., Professor of Theology at Konigs- 
berg. 
Biblical Commentary on the Gospels. Edinburgh. 1854. 3 Yols. 
The Last Days of our Saviour. 

G18 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

J. J. Oosterzee, DoD., Professor of Divinity at Utrecht. 
Christian Dogmatics. New York. 1874. 

Edwards A. Park, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary. 
The Atonement ; Discourses and Treatises by Edwards, Griffin, 

et al. Boston. 1859. 
Discourses on Theological Doctrines as related to the Religious 
Character. Andover. 1885. 

Joseph Parker, D.D. 

Ecce Deus : Essays on the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ. Bos- 
ton. 1867. 
Inner Life of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew. New York. 1883. 

A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Harvard University. 

Christianity and Science. New York. 1875. 

Rt. Rev. J. J. Stewart Perowne, D.D., Bishop of Worcester. 

Immortality. (Hulsean Lectures for 1868.) London. 1869. 

James Allanson Picton, M.A., M.P. 

The Mystery of Matter. London. 1873. 

George Putnam, D.D. 

Sermons Preached in the Church of the First Religious Society in 
Roxbury. Boston. 1S78. 

Joseph Erneste Renan. 

The Life of Jesus Christ. Boston. 1896. 

Karl Ritter, Member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. 

Comparative Geography of Palestine. Translated by W. L. Gage, 
M.A. Edinburgh. 1866. 4 Vols. 

619 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Edward Robinson, D.D., S.T.D., LL.D., Professor in Union 
Theological Seminary, New York. 
A Harmony of the Gospels in Greek. Andover. 1834. 
Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petraea. 
Boston. 1841. 3 Yols. 

Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, M.A. 

Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton. 
First and Second Series. London. 1855. 
Third Series. Boston. 1857. 
Fourth Series. Boston. 1860. 
Fifth Series. Boston. 1864. 

Charles A. Row, M.A., Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Christian Evidences viewed in relation to Modern Thought. (Bamp- 

ton Lectures.) London. 1877. 
The Historical Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from 

the Dead. London. 

Rt. Rev. John C. Ryle, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Liverpool. 
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels. London. 1856. 

Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. 

The Person of Christ. Boston. 1865. 
Christ in Song. New York, 1871. 

William Gottlieb Schauffler, D.D., LL.D. 

Meditations on the Last Days of Christ. Boston. 1853. 

John Robert Seeley, M. A., Professor in the University of Cam- 
bridge. 
Ecce Homo : the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Boston. 1866. 

William Smith, Ph.D., LL.D., D.C.L. 

Dictionary of the Bible ; Comprising its Antiquities, Biography, 
Geography, and Natural History. London. 1863. 3 Yols. 

620 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Goldwin Smith, LL.D. 

Lectures on the Study of History. Oxford. 1865. 

Henry B. Smith, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Union Theological 
Seminary. 
Faith and Philosophy. New York. 1877. 

J. V. C. Smith, M.D. 

Pilgrimage to Palestine. Boston. 1851. 

Very Rev. Robert Payne Smith, M.A., Dean of Canterbury. 

Prophecy a Preparation for Christ. (Bampton Lectures.) London. 

1870. 

Rev. Charles Spear. 

Names and Titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Boston. 1841. 

Samuel Thayer Spear, D.D. 

Life of Christ, published in the Independent. New York. 

Rev. James, Stalker, D.D. 

Imago Christi. New York. 1890. 

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. 

Sinai and Palestine in Connection with their History. London. 

1856. 
Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. New York. 1866. 

Two Parts. 

John Lloyd Stephens. 

Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrsea, and the Holy Land. 
New York. 1837. 2 Vols. 

Rudolph Stier, D.D. 

The Words of the Lord Jesus. Edinburgh. 1865. 8 Vols. 

621 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Richard Salter Storrs, D.D., LL.D. 

The Divine Origin of Christianity indicated by its Historical 
Effects. New York. 1884. 

Calvin E. Stowe, D.D., Professor in Andover Theological Semi- 
nary. 

Origin and History of the Books of the New Testament. Hart- 
ford. 1867. 

David Friedrich Strauss. 

Life of Jesus. London. 1866. 

William Stroud, M.D. 

Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ. London. 

1847. 

Christopher Sutton, D.D. 

Disce Mori. London. 1848. 

Jeremy Taylor, D.D., Bishop of Down and Connor, 1661. 

The Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Phila- 
delphia. 1832. 

F. Augustus Tholuck, D.D., Professor in the University at Halle. 

Commentary on St. John. Boston. 1836. 

Light from the Cross. Philadelphia. 1858. 

Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. Philadelphia. 1858. 

Thomas a Kempis. 

The Imitation of Christ. 

Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., LL.D. 

Theology of Christ from his own Words. New York. 1870. 

Rev. W. M. Thomson, D.D. 

The Land and the Book ; or Biblical Illustrations drawn from the 
Manners and Customs, the Scenes and the Scenery, of the Holy 
Land. New York. 1859. 2 Vols. 

622 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Constantine Tischendorf, Professor in the University at Leipsic. 
When were our Gospels Written? New York. 1867. 

Most Rev. R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. 

Studies in the Gospels. New York. 1867. 
Synonyms of the New Testament. New York. 1864. 
Notes on the Parables of our Lord. London. 1860. 
Notes on the Miracles of our Lord. London. 1856. 
Christ the Desire of the Nations. Philadelphia. 1854. 

Henry B. Tristram, D.D., LL.D., Canon of Durham. 

The Topography of the Holy Land : A Succinct Account of all the 
Places, Rivers, and Mountains of the Land of Israel mentioned 
in the Bible. London. 1872. 

The Land of Moab : Travels and Discoveries on the East Side of 
the Dead Sea and the Jordan. London. 1873. 

Joshua T. Tucker, D.D. 

The Sinless One. Boston. 1855. 

Professor Karl Ullmann, of the University at Halle. 

The Sinlessness of Jesus ; an Evidence for Christianity. Edin- 
burgh. 1870. 

C. W. M. Van der Velde, Lieutenant in the Dutch Royal Navy. 

Journey through Syria and Palestine. Edinburgh. 1854. 

Rev. H. J. Van Lennep. 

Bible Lands : their Modern Customs and Manners, Illustrative of 

Scripture. New York. 1876. 2 Vols. 

J. B. Walker, D.D. 

The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. Boston. 1855. 

William Warburton, D.D. 

The Divine Legation of Moses. London. 1846. 3 Vols. 

623 



REFERENCE AUTHORS. 

Professor Gustav Weil, of the University of Heidelberg. 

The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud, or Biblical Legends. Lon- 
don. 1846. 

Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., D.C.L., Regius Professor of 
Divinity, Cambridge. 
Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. London. 1860. 
The Revelation of the Risen Lord. London. 1881. 

Rev. James Herman Whitmore. 

Testimony of Nineteen Centuries to Jesus of Nazareth. Norwich 
1889. 

Rev. Thomas Wickes. 

The Son of Man. New York. 

E. C. Wines, D.D., LL.D. 

Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews. New York. 
1853. 

John Young, LL.D. 

The Christ of History : an Argument grounded on the Facts of his 
Life on Earth. New York. 1856. 



tft 






PSS^; 



>^ 



624 



INDEX. 

The proper names in this Index indicate quotations. 

Abbott, Jacob, 108 

Abbott, Lyman, 353, 442 

Agostino da Montefeltro, 339, 397 

Alden, H. M., 182 

Alexander, Cecil Frances, 236 

Alford, Dean, 385 

Allen, F. H., 110 

Andrews, Bishop, 140 

Anselm, Saint, 278, 415 

Aquinas, Thomas, 277 

Armitage, Thomas, 222 

Augustine, Saint, ....... 173, 243, 278, 397, 401, 413, 433 

Bacon, Lord, 331 

Barnes, Albert, 113 

Beecner, Henry Ward, 105,219, 399,422 

Beecher, Lyman, 375, 379 

Bengel, J. A., 150, 167, 292 

Bernard, Saint, 181, 236, 322, 444, 446, 455, 456 

Bonaventura, 91, 277 

Bossuet, 307 

Breviary, 29 

Brydges, ' . . 63 

Brooks, Rt. Rev. Phillips, .-,... ....'. . 234, 285 

Brooke, Stopford A., . . , 85 

Browning, Mrs. E. B., 88, 318, 323, 345, 348 

Browning, Robert, 401, 508 

Bruce, Alex. B., 374,381 

Bushnell, Horace, 85, 135, 173, 174, 312, 416 

Caird, Principal, 407, 408 

Galvin, 304, 405 

625 



INDEX. 

Cawood, John, 72 

Chartres, Bishop of, 377, 378 

Channing, William Ellery, ' . . 121, 415 

Chase, W. T., , . 409 

Chrysostom, Saint, 165, 194, 254, 294, 295, 392 

Clarke, J. P., 380 

Clement of Alexandria, 226 

Clement of Rome, 408 

Clovis, . . 347 

Cobbe, Frances P., 284 

Conder, 110 

Coquerel, A., .... 114 

Colenso, Bishop 123 

Cowles, 440 

Coxe, A. C, 65 

Cranmer, Archbishop, 596 

Cuyler, T. L., 61 

Cyprian, Saint, 300 

Cyril, 194 

Dale, R. W., .392,396,409 

Dante, 330 

D'Aubigne, 69 

De Pressense, 285 

Dewey, Orville, 392 

Dods, Marcus 251 

Dorner, 406 

Drummond, 406 

Dwight, President, 311, 320 

Edersheim, Alfred, ..... 126, 159, 166, 302, 305, 319, 321, 330 

Ellicott, Bishop, 375 

Ewald, ' . . 390 

Faber, 11, 69, 277 

Farrar, Archdeacon, 27, 47, 187, 207, 208, 274, 294, 315, 322, 323, 

360, 369, 402 

Fisher, Professor George P., 384 

Flarel, . 351 

626 



INDEX. 

Flight into Egypt, 80 

Foss, C. D., Bishop, 280 

Francis, Saint, , 397 

Gannett, E. S., 286 

Gerhardt, Paul, . 74, 298 

Geikie, Cunningham, 25. 78, 296 

Godet, Frederick, 405 

Goodwin, H. M., 90 

Griffin, E.D., 341 

Guevara, Antonio de, . 343 

Hall, Bishop, 428 

Hall, John, 395 

Hall, Newman, 313 

Hanna, William, 294, 368, 374, 439 

Harris, Professor Samuel, 140, 182, 286, 306, 404, 405, 406, 601, 602 

Hastings, H. L., . 340 

Herder, 67 

Herrick, S. E., 186, 187 

Hitchcock, R. D., 134, 369 

Hodge, Professor Charles, 136 

Hopkins, President Mark, Ill, 250 

Howells, W. D., 285 

Hughes, Thomas, 94 

Humbert, de Romanis, 228 

Huntington, Rt. Rev. F. D., . . . 43, 172, 180, 226, 403, 418, 450 

Incarnation, The, ' 69 

Irenaeus, 93 

Irving, Edward, 172, 329 

James, J. A., 300 

Jameson, Mrs., 31 

Jenyn, 121, 122 

Jerome, Saint, 45, 395 

Jerusalem, Journey to, 92, 93 

Jesus of Nazareth, adaptation of his words, . . 196, 199-204 

beneficence, - 160-163 

627 



INDEX. 

Jesus of Nazareth, boyhood, 89, 90, 91 

character, inconceivable unless real, ....... 121, 122 

symmetry of his, 109-14 

conversations, 195-199 

dignity, 205-209 

eyes, his use of, 206, 209,211 

Helper, the Spiritual, 109 

gentleness, 269 

humility, 105 

ideals of, 178, 180 

imitation of, 123, 124, 463-474 

knowledge of men, 108, 109 

Leader, the, 108 

life, perfect in faithfulness, love, magnanimity, patience, purity, 

universal sympathy, 115-124 

love of, disinterested, personal, 182, 231 

mental growth, 94, 95 

modesty, 101 

Morning Star, the, 99 

organizing force of, 158 

parables, 218 

patience, 104, 262, 267 

Patriot, the, 109 

prayer, early habit, ... 97-99 

Scripture, early knowledge of, 95, 96 

self-sacrifice, 171, 177 

serenity, 107 

sinless, 115-119 

severity of, !...,....'. 269, 274 

social nature, 107 

sympathy, 106, 197 

Teacher, the Divine, 193, 195, 217, 223, 225, 227,259,269,279,287 

tempted in all points, 132, 141 

trade, learning a, .... 102-104 

transformation of human life by, 185-187 

vitalizing force of, 238 

works of, . . . 149, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160, 164, 165, 292, 325 

John the Baptist, character of, 126, 269 

Josephus, 145, 146, 346, 349 

6^8 



INDEX. 

Keble, John, 75 

Keim, 208 

Kennedy, B. H., 394 

Ker, John, 294 

Kingsley, Charles, . . . • 295 

Knox, John, 307 

Krummacher, 37 

Lacordaire, Rev. Pere, 140, 141 

Lange, 219, 319 

Leighton, Archbishop, 291 

Lessing, 248 

Lessius, 413, 414 

Liddon, Canon H. P., 85, 386, 406, 407 

Lightfoot, Bishop, 311 

Longfellow, H. W., 23, 35, 49, 53, 138 

Lowell, J. R., 72 

Lowrie, J. M., 258 

Lyra Catholica, 29, 37, 59 

Lyte, Henry Francis, . 237 

Luther, 255, 306, 360, 393, 394, 420 

Magi, the 77 

Martineau, James, 113 

Mary, the mother, 31, 85-88, 89 

Mary of Magdala, 361 

M'Cosh, President, 217 

McLaren, Alexander, 216, 232, 344, 361 

Melanchthon, 412 

Mill, John Stuart, 114, 121, 409 

Milton, 428 

Moody, DwightL., 21,341,342,348,444 

Morris, A. J., 130, 155 

Naville, Ernest, 385 

Nazareth, 83, 84, 91, 97, 98 

Nazianzen, Gregory, 455 

Neander 390 

Newman, Cardinal, 357, 358 

Norton, Andrews, 285 

629 



INDEX. 

Oosterzee, 117 

Origen, ..-,-...... 449 

Palestine, description of, 81, 82, 101, 126, 134, 144, 147, 153, 154, 189, 

190, 293, 294, 296, 299, 310 

Park, Prof. E. A., 311, 414, 415 

Parker, Joseph, 158, 248 

Pascal, Blaise, 222, 250 

Patrick, Saint, 456 

Peabody, Prof. A. P., Ill 

Pentecost, George F., . 162 

Perowne, Bishop, 116 

Peter, Saint, character of , 226, 320, 323 

Phelps, Hon. Edward J., 387,388 

Pone luctnm, Magdalena, 59 

Poor, Christ's sympathy for the, 106 

Putnam, George, . 281 

Quesnel, 294, 301 

Raleigh, Alex., 440 

Remy, Saint, . . . 347 

Renan, Erneste, 153, 285 

Resurrection, proofs of, .... 357, 393 

Richter, 415 

Robertson, F. W., 41, 117, 184, 337 

Rossetti, Christina G., 354 

Rousseau, 327, 343 

Row, C. A,, . : 121, 241 

Schaff, Philip, 1.10,121,239,247,286 

Sears, E. H., 19, 71, 73 

Seeley, J. R., 234, 249,250 332 

Shepard, George, 154, 155 

Smith, Goldwin, 120, 286 

Smith, Henry B., 285, 398 

Spear, Samuel T., 312, 353 

Spurgeon, 33, 39 

Stabat Mater, 57, 350 

Stanley, Dean, . . . 269, 281, 440 

630 



INDEX. 

Storrs, RichardS., 51,68,182,359,363,391,394,427 

Sunday School Times, . 311,320,344,597 

Sutton, Christopher, 278 

Talcott, Prof. D. S., 246, 24S, 249, 283, 284 

Talmud, 102, 274 

Tappan, W. B., 309 

Tauler, 396 

Taylor, Hudson, 440 

Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, . 296, 322, 420 

Tenney, A. P., 383 

Tennyson, . , . 436 

Tertuliian, 351 

Tholuck, 346, 351, 369, 370, 379, 392 

Thomas a Kempis, . 348, 396, 444, 454 

Thompson, J. P., 268 

Thomson, William, ; 303 

Trench, Archbishop, . 119,120,292 

Tucker, President, 366 

Vaughan, C. J., 178,390 

Voltaire, 313 

Watson, John, 397 

Watts, Isaac, 74 

Weissel, Georg, 295 

Wesley, Charles, 71 , 72 

Whately, Archbishop, . 160 

Whitfield, Frederick, 169 

Whittier, 19 

Whitmore, Testimonies by, . . 123 

Willard, Frances E., . . 281 

Withrow, J. L., 317,322 

Woolsey, President, « . 232 

Young, John, 112 

York, Archbishop of, 334, 335 

Zinzendorf, Count, 25 

631 



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